


avengance

by peteyparkour



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, But a lovable one, F/M, Hunger Games AU, I guess this is an au?, Inspired by The Hunger Games, Lots of Angst, Marvel/The Hunger Games, Sad with a Happy Ending, a REALLY long au, clint is accidentally the villain, i could never make comic clint a villain, mcu clint tho not comic clint, the main character is kind of an idiot sometimes, very little fluff because i can't write fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-06-03 03:43:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19455637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peteyparkour/pseuds/peteyparkour
Summary: When Aveline Ridley, a secret avenger, is thrown into another one of her untrustworthy visions of the future, she finds herself and her teammates in a place of death, destruction, and pain. She tells her team of what she saw, but insists that it could not of been real, and they believe her.That is, of course, until they're kidnapped.[a marvel + the hunger games au]





	1. catalogus

name: aveline ridley  
other aliases: n/a  
age: 19  
traits and abilities: quick-thinking. uses emotions to fuel her attacks, extremely passionate. is skilled in hand-to-hand combat with and without handheld weapons, but is often sloppy in her procedure, making the attack less effective. highly intelligent. is able to heal injuries through touch. other powers are currently unknown. has been known to receive visions of the future, though the visions have been incorrect on multiple occasions.  
threat (0-10): 8.7

name: pietro maximoff  
other aliases: quicksilver  
age: 20  
traits and abilities: quick-thinking, but often does not think of the consequences when in battle. superhuman speed.   
threat (0-10): 8.1

name: james buchanan barnes  
other aliases: bucky, the winter soldier  
age (technical): 102  
traits and abilities: cold in battle and to enemies. master assassin, superhuman strength and healing.  
threat (0-10): 9.2

name: steven grant rogers  
other aliases: steve, captain america  
age (technical): 100  
traits and abilities: very passionate and often makes decisions based off of emotions. superhuman strength, speed, and healing.  
threat (0-10): 8.9

name: anthony edward stark  
other aliases: tony, iron man  
age: 48  
traits and abilities: quick-thinking, especially in battle. is known to suffer from ptsd and anxiety. highly intelligent. iron man suit is equipped with guns, swords, bombs, flight, armor, communication devices, etc.  
threat (0-10): 8.9

name: gamora zen whoberi ben titan  
other aliases: murderess, deadliest woman in the galaxy  
age: 28  
traits and abilities: is known to be very closed off and cold. master assassin, deceptive, works best with a blade.   
threat (0-10): 9.7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! this is my first story i've ever posted on ao3 and i'm pretty excited! hope you all enjoy! -peteyparkour :)


	2. unus

**PART ONE.**

_the gathering_

The light peeks through the curtains in my room as my eyes slowly open. I roll over, expecting to see the person who sneaks into my room almost every night now and refuses to leave until I basically drag him out of bed. However, when I look over, the space next to me is empty, though I know he was in bed earlier. Confused, I sit up and stretch, my shoulders cracking a little as I move them around. I stand and put on the slippers Steve gave me last Christmas –they were his favorite brand when he was growing up, and he insisted that he would find me a pair even though the company went out of business over 40 years ago– and my light blue oversized pants wrap themselves around my ankles as I begin to walk. I make my way to the door and as I approach they slide open automatically.

"Good morning, Aveline,"F.R.I.D.A.Y. says through the speaker outside my room softly, complementing the gentle sunlight shining through the large windows in the facility.

My slippers squeak as I walk toward the kitchen through the empty hallways. I yawn and finally enter the kitchen, where I normally find at least a few other teammates in the morning. I don't often eat breakfast myself, but it's always nice to spend time peacefully with the other Avengers.

As I enter the room, I see only one person in the room, and it's exactly who I'm looking for: Pietro. He doesn't notice as I walk in, so I take to leaning against the door frame, a small smile resting on my lips as I watch him make breakfast. My right hand drifts to my left wrist and I begin mindlessly playing with the small bracelet Pietro gave me for our one-month anniversary, my fingers finding their way to the personalized charm– one that works as a lock pick should I ever be in a tough situation. Pietro knows about my underlying anxiety about being stuck in a locked room, so not only does the bracelet hold sentimental meaning but it holds a purpose as well. I begin to lose my focus and drift in my thoughts, and before I can react a small gust of wind brushes by me and I'm trapped in a hold. I gasp, but laugh as I realize that it's just Pietro. "Good morning, love," he says gently into my ear, his voice low.

"Good morning," I respond, still laughing some from the surprise of his embrace.

Just when I think I'm calmed down, Pietro grabs tight around my waist and he takes off, speeding me around the kitchen. He comes to a stop and I'm thrown into a chair, laughing as I shake off the nausea attempting to overcome me.

I look up to see Pietro making a second breakfast, the first one sitting in front of the seat next to mine. I begin to open my mouth to protest but Pietro appears in the seat next to me, sliding the meal in front of me. "Thanks love, but you know I don't eat breakfast."

"Well, being that I've already made it, and the fact that you didn't eat dinner last night as you were busy in the lab with Tony and you're probably pretty hungry," Pietro says, and I look away sheepishly as a mischievous grin grows on his face. "You thought I wouldn't catch that, hmm? So I think you should eat some breakfast." Pietro laughs lightly. When I look down at my food with hesitance, Pietro dramatically sighs before speaking again. "Please, just for me? It'll make me feel better, Wanda always says my cooking is terrible." I know this is a lie as Wanda tolerates even Vision's cooking, but I let him feel like he's won.

"Alright, but only because I don't want to hurt your feelings," I joke.

I pick up the fork and scoop a bite of eggs, which I notice don't have cheese– I'm somewhat lactose intolerant, a small detail Pietro remembered. I taste the food and prepare to pretend that I like it, but I'm surprised to find that the food is delicious. Pietro laughs a little at my side as I quickly eat my food.

"Seems like you like it after all. Or maybe you're hungry enough to choke down anything." He laughs, and I laugh with him.

"It's delicious, Piet. I don't even think Wanda could say anything bad about this one."

"That's refreshing to hear."

He stands, and I look over to see his plate completely gone. I'm not a slow eater and I'm only halfway done. I must look surprised, because Pietro laughs before he starts to clean up.

"What can I say, I'm fast," he says quietly, turning the tap on to wash his dishes. I still tend to hand wash the dishes out of habit from my childhood, and though I know Pietro would be perfectly happy putting the dishes in the dishwasher like everyone else, he hand washes the dishes with me when we eat together. It may be a small detail, but it's one that means a lot to me.

I continue eating in the comfortable silence between Pietro and I. When I'm about three-quarters of the way through my breakfast I suddenly lose my appetite, my head feeling light. My stomach clenches and I rock back into my chair, the legs squeaking against the floor, which makes Pietro turn his attention to me.

"Ave, you alright?" He asks, putting down the halfway washed dish before coming my way.

He wipes his hands down on the front of his pants as he walks up to me. I nod as he places a hand on my arm, his skin still a bit damp, but he doesn't look convinced. "Hey, you can talk to me. What's wrong?"

I take a deep breath before responding. "Nothing, just feeling a little strange. I'm sure it'll pass." I hardly get the words out before my body throws me backward and my mind flashes, showing me small fragments of nightmarish thoughts. I shake my head violently, trying to rid the images, but they only become clearer. I feel tears slip from my eyes and vaguely hear Pietro's voice shout something as I finally slip into the chilling world created by my own mind.

~~~ 

When I'm able to see again, I'm greeted with images and voices too real to be made up.

It begins in a place so beautiful I'd have thought it had to be Asgard, but my senses know better than to think it was a sanctuary. I look around, attempting to pick out faces, sounds, even just clothing to remember anyone by, but everyone around me is dressed in too similar attire for me to pick any certain one out. The faces blur when I try to place them, leaving me strictly to my own thoughts. This isn't my first time being trapped in a nightmare, but it's the first time I haven't been able to pick anything out. _Why can't I pick anything out?_

Finally, a siren blares, and everyone around me rushes in, creating a feeling of vertigo as I follow myself toward the center. I watch as my body trips and falls only to be yanked back up again by someone with long, black curled hair, the tips of it melting to pink. I try to place her but fail to, though I know I've seen someone like her before. She shouts something to me as she runs off, but just like everything else around me, I'm unable to make out what she says. I continue running only to trip once more, but this time instead of getting back up, I'm placed in another image. I gasp at the solace, but find that my relief is misplaced.

I'm placed on top of a body, my arms cradling it as it takes its last breath. My eyes widen, and though I'm able to see where I am and find distinct landmarks, I can't figure out who lays in my arms. My hands are blood-stained and woven through the man's brown hair, and I feel tears streak my face as a grief-stricken scream comes from behind me. My right side throbs with a pain I had never felt before, making me gasp out of reflex. I crouch over the body and release a sob as my mind flips to the next scene.

I'm seated next to the girl with the pink hair once again, though this time she seems anything but friendly. She looks at me coldly before speaking, her voice coming out pained but stern. 

"You might not know it yet, but alliances just drag you down. I'm not interested," I hear her say as she stands and walks off, and I feel my throat get thick as I try to talk.

"Wait," I finally manage out, "I know where your friend is." My voice sounds raw and comes out quiet and scratchy, but she hears and turns. My hands shake as I force out one last sentence, my mind already threatening to show another nightmare. 

"I know what happened to him." 

I finally let go and let my mind show the next scene, but not before I get a clear view at the girl. She has green skin and is taller than me, and sports the same outfit I saw at the beginning of the vision. Her hair is indeed black and pink, and sheathed across her back are two long swords, both looking like they were not from Earth. My mind attempts to connect who she is, but I stop thinking about her completely as the next scene plays.

The moon is shining brightly as I walk through a small grassy area, the place covered in what look to be bodies. My heart aches for reasons I've yet to discover, and I feel myself fall to my knees. 

"No," I croak, my eyes filling with tears. "No, no!" Rage takes over and I stand abruptly before I begin to run across the area, tears flooding my sight as I try to look at each faceless body I pass. 

"He wasn't supposed to die, it was supposed to be me! You hear that?! Me!" 

I continue running, but just like at the beginning of my vision, I trip and fall, but stay down this time. I look behind me at the ruins, and scream for help, though somehow I know I won't receive it. I look back at my hands and hear myself whisper once more as tears escape my eyes when I close them.

"It was supposed to be me."

I expect to open my eyes to another scene, but I open my eyes to darkness. No sound, no light, just darkness. My mind begins to divulge in what I just saw, playing and replaying each worst-case scenario that comes with each vision. I'm still try to figure out the visions when I hear a faint voice in the back of my head. "Aveline," it calls, and I try to follow it. I begin to feel myself shake, but I'm not shaking– it's someone else shaking me. 

"Aveline!"

I gasp and force open my eyes to the harsh light of the kitchen, where more people than just Pietro have found their way to. "Oh, thank God," Pietro says as he crushes me in a hug, and I take the second to look at who's around me. I quickly pick out Steve holding the back of his neck out of stress, then Bucky, who's trying to calm him down. To their left, Tony and Natasha look on from afar but still with worry. I try to look around more but I let myself fall into Pietro's hug instead, and I faintly notice Wanda to the right of me place a hand on my back and whisper, "You'll be okay." 

I take a deep breath then release from Pietro's embrace, looking around in confusion. "Was that what I think it was?"

Dr. Strange is the first to speak up. "Compared to your previous blackouts, this was much worse, but yes. If what you've ever experienced before is any tell, you just had a vision. Only this time, it was much longer, and you," he pauses, taking a shaky breath, his eyes doing everything they can to not meet mine. "You were trying to talk to us. You kept saying things we couldn't understand. Someone wrote them down."

"I did." I watch as Peter Parker steps forward.

"Why is he here?" I ask quietly, the worry on my face obviously showing through. The rest of the Avengers shift awkwardly and Tony puts an arm on Peter's arm, but Peter politely removes it.

"It's fine, Mr. Stark," he says to Tony before turning to me. "I'm supposed to be going on a mission later today, so I came last night so I wasn't stressed on time this morning. Plus, I'm a good note taker. Props of still being in high-school, I guess." He gives me a small smile when saying this, which releases some of the tension in my chest, but not all of it. He looks down at the small notebook in his hands, the outside decorated in planets and constellations.

"The first thing you said was, _"Wait."_ Then you said, _"I know where your friend is. I know what happened to him."_ Does any of that ring a bell?"

The recent memories flood back as I relive what I just saw. "I remember it all." I say, my eyes pointed toward the ground. The room stays silent and Pietro takes my hand.

I look up to him, and with a gentle voice he asks, "Can you tell us what happened?"

I slightly nod my head and take a deep breath. Before I talk, Pietro squeezes my hand in reassurance. _You're not going anywhere this time,_ he says without words. _You're staying right here. I've got you._

"It began with a lot of people in a large circle. I tried my hardest the entire time but I couldn't pick out faces– it was as if they were blurred, but nothing else was. Everyone was dressed in the same black uniform of sorts, making it even harder to try to differentiate the people. A loud siren rang out, and everyone ran for the center. There was something there, maybe supplies, but I wasn't paying attention. I got about halfway before I tripped and fell, and a girl helped me back up. She was the only one I could pick out, but I could only pick her out at the end. She had green skin and black and pink hair; I recognized her, but couldn't connect where I knew her from. She was taller than me, and by the end of it carried two swords on her back."

"Gamora," Thor speaks up from the back. He stands from his place and walks slowly around the gathered group. "The fiercest woman in the galaxy. We met once, and she is not one to be messed with. The fact that she helped you is a good sign. We at least have her on our side."

"How did you meet her? Would I have known her from anywhere? I felt like I knew her," I ask, my curiosity taking over.

"She is a part of the Guardians of the Galaxy, as the man who seemed to be the leader called themselves. I do not believe the two of you have met, but there is a chance you have run into her if you were outside Midgard at some point."

I think about this for a moment, but come up with nothing. There have been times I've been outside Earth, but none of which do I remember meeting her. I decide to put the thought on hold and continue explaining the vision. "After she pulled me up, she shouted something to me, but I couldn't pick it out. We both continued to run our separate ways after that, and when I was almost at the center I fell again, but this time she wasn't there to pick me up and the vision changed.

"The next image I was cradling a body in my arms. I could feel the tears on my cheeks– I could feel the pain in my side and the ache in my chest. It felt so... so _real_. I began to wonder if I was dreaming at all, or if the nightmare was reality. I couldn't tell who I was holding but it was someone important to me, which means any of you, really. Whoever it was, he had brown hair, and my hands were in his hair. They were– on my hands was–" I stop, unable to get the words out.

"Maybe you need a break. This is a lot for you to go through," Tony suggests, but I shut it down instantly.

"No. I need to tell what happened." I take a deep breath, then try to continue my description as steadily and quickly as possible, tears pricking my eyes. "My hands were covered in blood. I don't know who's. The body in my arms stopped breathing, and I heard someone behind my scream, but not like they were attacked. Like they realized that whoever was in my arms had just died. It was someone they cared about. It was someone I cared about too. I could feel it.

"The vision changed again and I was talking with Gamora, if Thor is correct in his assumptions. That's when I started being able to talk and hear. Gamora was sitting next to me. I remember what she said– "You might not know it yet, but alliances just drag you down. I'm not interested." She walked off after that. That's when I called out. Those are the first two things on your notes."

Peter looks down at the notepad with a pale face, then scratches the back of his neck nervously. " _Wait_ ," he reads out again. " _I know where your friend is. I know what happened to him_."

"Except, the problem is I don't. I don't know what happened to him, or what happened to the dead body I held in my arms, or what happened in the next vision I saw." I run my hands through my hair and grab onto it out of anger, before letting go and letting my head hang down. The room stays silent once again, and for a moment it feels as if I'm the only one there, but I know that's not true. "There was one last vision," I say quietly after a few moments. "Peter, do you have any more notes?"

I see him nod out of the corner of my eye. "Ar–are you sure you want me to read these?" He asks nervously. I nod back to him, knowing that everything in the book was most likely heard by everyone in this room anyway, and he takes a small breath. " _"No, no, no! He wasn't supposed to die, it was supposed to be me! You hear that?! Me!"_ After you said that, you stopped talking for a little while and slumped down and everyone got really worried, but then you said out of nowhere, _"It was supposed to be me."_ Then it took us around five minutes to wake you up." Peter avoids eye contact with me while he reads this out, his voice staying quiet, as if he was reading something he shouldn't have been. I nod my head, then close my eyes as I start filling in the context.

"It was nighttime. There were no lights on, but the moon was so bright it felt like there were. I opened my eyes to a small, grassy field. Only, instead of there just being grass in front of me, there were bodies. And not just random bodies. I couldn't figure out who was who, but I knew, I could feel it, the bodies were yours. All of you. Something had happened and I managed to make it out alive while the rest of you died. I don't know why I said what I said, or what or who it relates to. After all of that happened, I closed my eyes and it stayed dark. Instead of opening up another nightmare, I was locked in with my own thoughts, which almost felt worse. The only reason I found my way out was because I heard someone calling to me, but it sounded far away."

"That was me," Pietro says, his eyes never leaving the table and his face scrunched up in concentration. Everyone takes a moment to let the words sink in, and when no one says anything for a few moments, I speak up again.

"Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I don't know why I couldn't pick out faces, but it definitely just makes things worse for us."

"That's not true," Steve says from where he's standing across the room. "Your vision could've very well just saved our lives, Aveline. We just need to figure out how to, well, deal with it, I suppose."

He attempts to offer a friendly smile from his position leaning on the door frame, just as I was not too long ago. It's strange to think that just this morning I was joking around with Pietro, and now we have this to try and comprehend.

"What if it's not even true? There have been a lot of times when my visions have been wrong," I say, my eyes starting to involuntarily well up with tears. I push them back, but not before Pietro sees and makes eye contact with me. He goes to say something to me, but Steve speaks up before him.

"But there have also been many times they've been right. You're still learning to use your power, it's okay if you mess up here and there. But just because you made a mistake doesn't mean that you'll always make a mistake. You have to trust your ability, Aveline. Even if this is just a false alarm, at least we'll be prepared should it happen, right?"

I take a moment to think through his argument and finally agree, nodding slightly. Pietro stands and places a hand on my arm, ushering me to stand. 

"Come on, let's get you some fresh air," he says, guiding me out of the room.

We walk for a minute or two across the compound, where Pietro takes me onto the small balcony that extends off the side of my room. We both sit, and I finally take a deep breath, my muscles and mind relaxing. After a few minutes my breathing calms, and I look up to Pietro, who's already looking at me. His eyes soften when I meet his gaze, and he bites his lower lip for a moment before speaking. 

"Are you okay? I know you're not a stranger to the blackouts and you're going to say you're fine, but are you actually? You know you can always talk to me."

"I know I can, thanks Piet. And though you're not going to believe me, I'm okay." When I say this, Pietro gives me an overly dramatic suspicious look, which brings a laugh out of me. 

"Really, I swear I am, it's just... a lot to take in, you know? I watched people I knew but couldn't see die, and I don't know which one of the Avengers it is. So much happened, yet I know so little. It just... the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. That's all." I look out across the facility, watching the birds fly across the horizon as the day begins to reach its peak.

"Yeah, that does make sense. I can't imagine what it was like for you to go through that, but do know if you ever need to talk about it, I'm always here, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks, love."

"Anytime."

We sit in silence for a few more minutes before a series of crashes from inside makes the both of us jump, and before I can even suggest for us to check out the noise, Pietro's already ran the both of us inside to where the rest of the Avengers were residing. No one's in the room anymore, and I look to Pietro with confusion. Despite Pietro's super speed, we're both just a little too late: Pietro's face changes to fear in a split second, and he opens his mouth to shout but before he can I'm shot in the right side with what looks like a tranquilizer, but hurts much, much more. I double over in pain, falling to the ground as my vision quickly darkens. I watch as Pietro shouts my name and tries to pick me up and run away, but he's hit with the same bullet as me. He yells out in pain, and I watch as he falls over me as my vision finally turns to black.


	3. duo

**PART TWO.**

_the initiation_

A quick shock in my right side jolts me awake, making me take in a small breath out of surprise. I go to open my eyes out of reflex, but right before I do I make the quick decision to keep them shut. I immediately begin to try to listen for noise around me or anything else that could give away information about where I'm being held. I don't hear any other breaths, eliminating both the possibility of some of the other Avengers being held in here and the possibility of one of my captors being in here. I release a breath out of disappointment at this realization, but continue to keep my eyes shut. For good reason I find out, as a strangely human monotone voice speaks out from above me.

"Subject 19 reacted slightly to electric. It appears the subject is still suffering from the Dart. Current time is 1:19 PM, next time check in one hour." 

The speaker cuts out, and I wait a few moments before peeking my eyes open just enough to get a grasp of my surroundings. Through my eyelashes I see a small room lit with dull blue lights along the ceiling, and with glass cabinets just below, covering all of the wall space I can see. I take a moment to feel if there is anything holding me down, but from what I can tell I'm simply laying on a table with nothing stopping me from getting up and leaving. With this knowledge I take a deep breath, my body preparing to carry out the plan forming in my head. Within seconds I've completed what I need to do to escape, and before I can doubt myself I put it into action.

I force my eyes open and rip myself off the table I'm lying on, the blue light startling my vision for a moment. I look around the room to find myself alone as I predicted. I quickly glance through the glass cabinets to see if there's anything of use, but all I see are empty beakers. As I'm about to run toward the door, I see a closed off vial with a transparent liquid in it, and as I walk up to it I see it has a label on it that reads _"ONE TIME USE: REVIVAL"_. My hand shakes as I pick up the vial, unsure of what it truly is, but I grab it anyway and finally make my way to the door. I place the vial in my pants pocket to free my hands for the next step. I raise my hands and try to twist the door knob, but it doesn't move. For a moment I'm frozen in confusion as I continue to try to open the door, but it won't budge. 

"Shoot, no," I mutter under my breath as I continue to rattle the door knob, my frustration getting the best of me and I push away from the door and throw my hands through my hair. 

I take a breath and try to calm myself down, but my internal clock knows any second wasted is a second that someone could use to track me down. I take my hands out of my hair, my right one coming out easily but my left getting caught. I scrunch my eyes in confusion for a moment before I realize the reason: my bracelet. I detach my bracelet from my wrist and unwrap it from my hair, and when I finally untangle the bracelet I take a look at what my hair was wrapped around– the charm. My eyes widen at the realization and a smile breaks out on my face. I silently thank Pietro for his brilliance and run over to the door, picking the lock as soon as I kneel down. Within seconds I've opened the door, and I reattach my bracelet to my wrist quickly. Without a second of hesitance, I'm out the door and into the hallway, which I expected to be busy but instead is completely empty. The lights of the hallway are a much brighter blue, a color I'd think to see in a hospital or a place just as ominously sterile. Though this place is nothing like a hospital, the empty hallways still give me the same feeling of strange anxiety, one I get when I'm somewhere I feel I'm not supposed to be. I start to run down the hall, passing many closed doors as I do.

I'm almost at the end of the hallway when I hear the first sign of people even occupying this building. 

"Hey, where are you going?" The person yells out to me, his voice low and gruff. I don't even turn to acknowledge I've heard him, instead choosing to continue running. 

My speed makes the harsh blue lights blur above me, contrasting the darkness of the flooring and walls. I'm rounding the corner to enter the second hallway when I begin to hear footsteps trailing me, the hallway echoing his voice as he speaks a series of numbers into his arm. I don't catch onto the strand but I clearly hear what he says after: "Code 6. All available personnel to Gateway 2 immediately."

I continue to run as fast as possible, knowing that any second now it won't just be one man chasing me. I try to shut out the questions racing through my mind as I try to place all my concentration on a way to get out of here. Each door I pass looks the same, and I begin to wonder if I've made any real progress. The lights above me still shine blue, and though I'm starting to doubt myself on my hastily made plan I continue to run, turning around yet another corner. When I make it into the third hallway, I start to hear the echo of footsteps behind me grow, quickly turning from one pair to two, to four, the number increasing faster than I can keep track of. My mind starts to become unfocused as I start to breathe too fast, my head feeling a bit too light and my legs feeling a bit too numb. Trying to keep my focus, I force my eyes from my feet to what's ahead of me, and I'm immediately glad I did. Only about fifty feet away is a set of panel doors with an exit sign glowing above them. A small relieved smile grows on my face and I force myself to run faster, knowing if I can just make it to the exit door I'll be fine. The increasing volume of footsteps behind me fades away as I focus on just making it my goal. Everything around me fades to black, the distance between me and the doors closing in quick.

I'm just a few steps away from the doors when I'm knocked over by someone from my right side. Despite it being hours ago, the pain from the shot I took earlier flares up again upon the impact, making me wince. We both fall to the ground from my momentum, and I try to slip out of the grip the person has on me. I almost do, but as I try to stand up the person latches onto my ankle and I fall once again. This time, the person pins my arms to the ground as more people begin to surround me. I finally get a good look at the person's face, and I'm shocked to find that it's a boy who looks just around the same age as me, with short brown hair and piercing blue eyes, the color matching the lighting almost exactly. 

"Pick her up," he barks at the guards, who quickly lock onto my upper arms and yank me off the floor. I attempt to kick out, but another guard grabs onto my ankles as well, trapping me in the air.

"You know, I wasn't really expecting you to be the one to escape, Aveline," he says, his head tilting up.

"What do you want from me," I growl, still thrashing against the guards' grip. 

After a moment I realize he used my name, though I'm not sure how he knows it. My mind doesn't focus on that information at the moment, however, as the boy in front of me poses a much bigger threat than the words he decides to use. The boy steps forward, a malicious grin marking his face. My eyes burn holes into him, but if it bothers him he doesn't show. He even laughs a little at my anger before raising his eyes to me to respond.

"You'll find out soon enough, don't you worry. And if it's matters at all to you, you managed to get the farthest out of the rest of the subjects. Only one other person figured out a way to get out of the room, let alone almost escape." His eyes never leave mine as he says this, his grin turning bitter as he talks. "And though it's been fun to watch you struggle, I think it's time you're put in your place." 

I watch as he takes what looks like an extremely wide pen out of his pocket and slowly walk toward me. I don't say a word as he approaches and continue to try to escape the grasp, but with no success. As he finally makes it to me, I expect that he'll say something to try to anger me further, but instead he abruptly stabs the object into my arm. I cry out in pain as he holds it there, and I slowly feel myself drifting. I'm dropped to the ground and vaguely notice the vial still in my pocket dig into my side, and right before I pass out the boy leans over me once more, his eyes holding a blue poison.

"Good luck, Miss Ridley. You'll need it."

  


~~~ 

  


_"Subject undergoing initiation phase one is Subject 19. Subject 19 has been recommended and approved for: Cryogenic Interrogation. Supervisor for this interrogation is Dr. Lasind. Interrogation will begin as soon as the subject is awake."_

For a moment I'm feel dazed, and without thinking I try to bring a hand to my head to calm the pounding. My body shivers and I groan as I try to raise my hand again, this time my brain processing that it's not reaching my head. _What's happening?_ I look down at my arms to find them strapped to the wall I'm leaned up against, and instantly my head clears and I remember the events of today. My eyes widen quickly and I try to look around, but I cannot see outside the cylinder I'm being held in. I try to move my legs to find that they're strapped down as well, and at this I open my mouth to shout but I'm cut off by a similar monotone voice to the one I heard in the first room.

_"Subject 19 is awake. Cryogenic Interrogation will begin now. Time begun is 1:58 PM. Dr. Lasind has entered the interrogation room."_

The monotone voice cuts out, and I instantly become ready to attack anyone at a moments notice, though I don't see anyone approach. I begin to get paranoid but realize quickly that the reason I can't see anyone approaching is because I can't see anything at all– the cylinder is opaque, restricting my view to the 3-foot radius of space I have. I pull at my arms again, my claustrophobia acting up in the back of my mind, but find that they're still tightly attached to whatever wall I'm backed up against. Once more, I open my mouth to shout, but ultimately decide not to. If I'm going to be tied up, I don't want my captors to think I'm desperate.

I'm slowly losing my patience as the minutes pass. It's had to have been at least five minutes since the monotone voice declared that Subject 19 –which I've come to assume is me– had woken up and that the person conducting my interrogation had already entered the room, but I still haven't heard a single voice. I decide, since there's nothing better to do, to attempt to find a way out of the constraints I've been placed in until my interrogation actually begins. Might as well make my time waiting useful. As I begin shifting my arms and legs around, looking for a loose stitch or worn binding, I start to shiver. The cylinder I'm in has gotten noticeably colder since I've woken up, but I didn't realize it before. Slowly, my mind connects what the voice said earlier to something I hear Bucky and Steve talk occasionally– I'm supposedly in a Cryogenic Interrogation, and when Bucky was stored in Wakanda in very cold conditions, they called it cryo. The thought creates itself before my mind can even process it, and I shiver even more at the thought of it: Whoever captured me is going to try to interrogate me with the threat of freezing me to death.

With this, I try to find a way out of the binds with more intensity, the binds moving some under my thrashing. The cold continues to flood the cylinder and I feel the tips of my fingers growing stiff. Finally, I resort to pulling my weight completely off the wall, hoping to force the constraints off.

"Now, now, I don't think that would be a wise decision." I freeze, the delicate female voice surprising me. "You wouldn't want for it to get any colder in there, now would you?"

The sudden voice startles me but I keep my mouth shut, not wanting to give the woman anything to use against me. With the cold getting harsher by the second, I decide to lean back onto the wall. When I do, I find that the binds have loosened some compared to when I woke up. We both stay silent for a moment before she speaks up.

"I'm going to ask a few simple questions. Every time you answer incorrectly, attempt to avoid the question, or simply refuse to answer at all, the temperature around you will drop five degrees. Due to your uncooperative actions earlier, the temperature currently rests at about 48 degrees." She pauses and I pick up on her shuffling, moving from my left side to my right. I close my eyes, opening them again when she asks her first question.

"What is your name?" Her tone almost makes the question feel like a statement. When I don't answer, she speaks up again. "You have five seconds until the temperature decreases."

I stay quiet again, and I hear her make a sound of dissatisfaction. "Fine," she says, "have it your way."

I feel the air around me cool, and once it does, she speaks up again.

"What is your name." This time there is no question in her tone.

I debate whether or not I should continue to resist answering her question, knowing that I can truly only keep this up for a small amount of time, especially if she was telling the truth about the temperature decreasing that much.

"Three seconds," she informs me, and I hear a small, mechanical shifting noise above my head. It must be the cooler for my cylinder. After taking a small breath, I give in.

"Aveline."

I can hear the smile creep onto my interrogator's face as she speaks. "See, that wasn't too hard, now was it Aveline? Now, what's your last name?"

Though her voice comes out gentle, as if it's my choice whether or not I want to answer her questions, I know better than to defy her. My arms shiver at the cold surrounding me, and when I look down, I vaguely expect to see the light blue pajamas I was wearing before this entire incident, but find a short blue and black t-shirt and sturdy, black pants covering me instead. _When did I change into this?_ I want to ponder the thought and attempt to find a time to pinpoint my change, but quickly realize I don't have the time to think of trivial things. I close my eyes and purse my lips before answering, my gut clenching at the idea of me simply giving away answers to my interrogator.

"Ridley. Aveline Ridley." I keep my answer short, not wanting to accidentally give away useful information.

I hear her make a small sound of satisfaction before an undeniable sound of a chair pulling up to the cylinder. I guess she thinks we're going to be here for a while. After the muffled sounds stop she doesn't waste any time, instead continuing on to the next question immediately. "How long have you been an associate to Anthony Stark?"

My mind instantly flashes to the training I had a few weeks after I joined the Avengers. Steve and Tony sat me down in a locked room and taught me how to handle an interrogation, guiding me to every answer I should give in the event that I was captured. My physical training has been one of the hardest experiences of my life, but interrogation was worse. The two heroes helped me on the first day, giving me pointers and telling me what the most important things to avoid saying– that being who I know, where any of the Avengers facilities are, and what I can do. The days after, however, they taught me what could happen in interrogation: the torturing, the mental games, the insanity of staying in one place for hours with no one but enemies trying to pry at what's in your mind. Even the slight thought of the week-long training sends shivers down my spine, but my voice finds it way back and immediately answers the way I was instructed to.

"I am not an associate to Anthony." My heart beats a little harder when saying this but my voice stays steady, just as I was taught.

"We both know that is not the truth, Aveline," she says, and I hear shuffling from her side of the cylinder. "Would you like to spare the few degrees and simply tell me the answer to my question?"

I keep my eyes straight at the wall in front of me as I answer, my instincts kicking in as this interrogation truly begins. "I already told you your answer. I am not an associate to Anthony."

"There's simply no way that's possible, Miss Ridley. We know you've been a resident at the Avengers facility in Northern New York for almost three years now. So do not think you'll get out of this question by attempting to give me a hollow lie." 

My stomach drops at her statements. Not only does she know of my association with Tony, but she knows that I've been with the Avengers for three years, despite my addition to the team being secret. I don't know how whoever is behind this kidnapping found out about me or my involvement with the Avengers, but there's no way that they could've found that information out from the outside. For a moment I think of simply giving in and telling my interrogator that I was lying, as she suspects, but my thoughts bring me back to my training once again. One particular statement that Tony said during my fifth day of interrogation comes to the front of my mind as I decide what to say back: _Whatever you do, whatever you say, just make sure you help you and the team. You're going to stay on the Avengers as a discreet recruit, so if anyone questions that you are with us_ – _and I mean anyone_ – _you deny it. You don't know me, you don't know Cap, you don't know Bruce, you don't know anyone. It's the only way you'll stay safe, and that's all we want. For you to be safe._

Despite my nervousness, I continue with what I was taught to say, my voice coming out much stronger than I feel. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not affiliated with the Avengers or any of its members. I've lived just outside Manhattan for all my life, including the past three years."

"I'm sure you'll rethink your choice of answer after a few seconds."

At this statement, I scrunch my eyebrows in confusion. After a few seconds, however, I feel the air around my cool even further, dropping five, ten, fifteen degrees. My eyes widen at the sudden chill, my teeth chattering. I go to ask why she's decreased the temperature to keep up my show of innocence, but quickly find out how she knows that I lied about one of my answers: whoever kidnapped me took me from the upstate facility. At this realization, I let my head drop and close my eyes, slamming my hands into the wall behind me in frustration.

"Realizing our mistakes, are we?" The interrogator asks, and I shoot my head up at her question.

 _How does she know_ –

"You didn't think that we'd put you in containment without a way to see what you're doing, did you?" She laughs, a sharp, bitter sound. I look around the cylinder for a camera, finding one behind me to my left, a small black eye watching my every move. "You keep making foolish mistakes, yet you were the one to almost escape. You do keep me guessing, Miss Ridley, I'll give you that."

She laughs once again after saying this, then continues on with the mind game she's started to play. "So, would you like to continue to deny what I already know, or are you going to answer my question truthfully?"

I don't speak up. I close my eyes once again, weeding through each possible answer I could give. Do I continue saying what I was trained to say with the legitimate risk of freezing to death, or do I tell the truth? My thought process is cut off when she speaks up once again, causing me to clench my jaw in extreme irritation.

"I'm going to give you one last chance to answer this question. If you decide to not answer truthfully again, we will continue to reduce the temperature until you decide to answer. How long have you been an associate to Anthony Stark?"

My mind races, my reasoning mentally pulling my head apart. After a few seconds of silence, I'm surprised to find that the temperature simply decreases with no taunting by my interrogator. The air seems to cool faster than before, easily dropping to below 20 degrees in less than 5 seconds. Even after only a few seconds, my wrists have already began to feel numb against the restraints, my fingertips stiffening completely. When the air continues to become frigid, my breathing picks up and my eyes widen. I suddenly feel as if the cylinder I'm in was smaller than before and my heart picks up speed as I quickly make my decision.

"Three and a half years. We met on accident and he suggested that we on kept in touch in case he needed an extra pair of hands on a, a project," I spit out, trying to keep the fact that I can do things most people can't to myself. "He told me he'd reach out if he needed me, but insisted that we kept our connection a secret so that I wouldn't become a target to attacks." I say the last part with venom in my voice, as that's exactly what happened. I may have bent the truth a little, but for the most part, what I said was what happened.

Tony and I did meet on accident– three years ago I had gone on a trip to Maine and the Avengers had been there on a stealth mission. I was exploring the area on my own and wound up at a concrete building that had been partially destroyed, but the rubble was still settling. Due to my own reckless curiosity, I went inside the remains of the building, walking in on Tony laying still on the ground, bleeding from an extreme gash on his arm and other small wounds scattered across his body. His suit was destroyed: the arms of his armor had been torn off completely, his mask in shards, and his chest plate melted so much that I was worried if he'd ever get it off his body. I ran up to him, my heart pounding, and checked his pulse to see if I had walked in on a dead Avenger. Thankfully, his heart was still beating, but the amount of blood he was losing suggested that he wouldn't be alive for much longer. I didn't know what to do; I didn't know of my power at the time. I placed a hand under his back in attempt to sit him up so I could carry him to safety when his wounds began to heal, each one slowly piecing itself back together. I removed my hand from his back as I watched his body patch itself up, but once I did the wounds stopped healing. It took a few moments to realize the correlation between me and Tony healing, but once I did I placed my hand on his arm, letting the rest of his wounds fade away. After Tony had woken up from my healing and felt well enough to get up and walk around, he questioned who I was and how I saved him. I told him who I was, but told him I didn't know how I saved him, just that I had placed my hands on him and his arm began to work its way back together. I'd come to find out after I moved into the Avengers facility and Tony and I grew close that he wasn't expecting to wake back up that day –he had told the rest of the team that was with him to leave him behind and collect him after the mission was completed– until I walked in and brought him back.

I think about the pain Tony looked like he was in the day I found him for a moment until I'm forced out of my thoughts by my interrogator once again.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Ridley. Though unfortu–" She stops abruptly, and I expect for her to say more, but after a few seconds I hear her mumble a few soft words and then footsteps walking away from my cylinder.

I scrunch my eyebrows in confusion at the sudden stop, unsure of what to make of it. I sit in silence for a few minutes, not risking my attempts of escape again. The air around me is beginning to feel painfully cold. I try to hold my hands together to keep some heat in, but it's no use. After a few minutes, I hear footsteps return to my cylinder.

"It appears one of your colleagues has slipped enough information for this interrogation to be useless. As much fun as it was to force a single question out of you," she says, the sarcasm dripping from her voice, "I have been ordered to release you. Please cooperate with your handlers or we're going to treat you much worse than how you just were treated."

As soon as she stops explaining, the cylinder detaches from the ground and lifts directly up, the air of the interrogation room encircling me immediately. I release a breath of relief, letting my guard down for a moment to appreciate the warm air and amount of space around me. When I look up after a few seconds, I find myself in front of the woman I assume to be my interrogator, and she's just how I pictured she would look: a woman in her late-forties, with graying roots to her black hair, dark brown eyes, and a sour smile, as if she finds fun in interrogating people. She looks me directly in the eye and smirks before saying one last statement, guards already entering the room to bring me to wherever my next location is.

"I hope you're ready for pain much, much worse than what you just went through, because you're going to receive just that."

The guards detach my arms and legs from the wall I was strapped to and quickly seize my arms before I can attack, but I don't try to. They allow me to walk on my own with simply two guards, one at each arm, and we begin to make our way toward the exit. The interrogator's words ring through my ears, cutting through all the barriers I had built to withstand people like her. There's a high chance that the statement she said was simply to make me paranoid, to send me off worrying about one more thing.

But for some reason, I feel like that's not true.

We reach the door of my interrogation room and I put what the interrogator said behind me as the guards open the door. The hallway is much more chaotic than it was when I attempted to escape. People are running in every direction, all faces I've never seen before. My mind scrambles to try to take in every face, to look for any familiar features, but it isn't until I hear a voice from about 15 feet down the hallway that I find a match to anyone I know. And once I hear it, I wish that I didn't.

"Please, let me see him! Please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please, let me go!"

I whip my head around at the sound of Peter Parker's voice. The teenager's face is distorted with pain and tears, his arms and face painted with bright, fresh wounds, and his eyes wet but wide open for the person he's calling for. He wrestles against the guards' grips, but even with his strength he can't break out of the grasp they have on him. He continues fighting against them and I do nothing but watch in pain, my eyes tearing up as my own guards try to pull me away from the scene.

"No, no, stop!" I say, resisting the guards as I try to pull my way towards Peter with my feet.

I debate about staying quiet and not revealing that I know him, but I quickly disregard that plan as I hear Peter continue to yell.

"Please, just let me go! Please! I know he's in there, I can hear him, please, I need to see him, I need to tell him that I'm sorry, please just let me see him and I'll shut up, I'll shut up I promise, I will, I'm sorry," he says through his sobbing, his voice hiccuping as he says the last couple words.

"Peter!" I yell, my guards pulling me away from him as they realize we know each other. "Peter, it's me, it's Aveline!"

His head quickly turns to my voice, and once he sees me he tries to force his way out of the guards' grasps with even more passion. The hallways begin to empty around us when the people hear our shouting, preferring to go back to their closed rooms than hear desperate pleas. Peter's still talking through tears as he responds back over the dissipating hallway.

"Aveline! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, they were hurting me and it hurt _so_ bad, and they said they wouldn't stop and I didn't know what to do and I'm so sorry Aveline, I'm so sorry," Peter gets out through his sobs and hiccups, making tears rush down my face at the boy who won't stop apologizing for reasons I haven't found out yet.

"It's okay, Peter, you're going to be okay," I say through my own tears, my legs still trying to force their way toward Peter despite having two guards on me holding me back.

My heart aches as I watch him continue to fight against his guards. My mind struggles to find a way to help him, but I come up with nothing. We're both helpless, but we're not willing to admit it.

Just as I'm about to give in and let my guards continue taking me where I'm supposed to go, a door a few feet past Peter opens. Two more guards step out with a severely injured man in between them, with bleeding wounds all over his arms and face, his clothing torn so aggressively it's barely clinging to his body, and his legs doing more dragging than carrying his weight. At first glance I don't recognize the person, but I quickly place him as he steps into the light.

It's Tony.

Peter immediately breaks down at the sight of his mentor, and Tony's head whips up when he hears Peter's sobs. Tony's eyes widen to an amount I've never seen before as he takes in Peter's current condition, and I watch tears fill his eyes as Peter begins apologizing once again.

"Mr. Stark, I'm so sorry this is all my fault, it was me I was the one who told them but it just hurt so bad, and they told me it would just get worse unless I told them what they wanted to know and I'm so sorry, I didn't want to and I tried not to but it hurt _so_ bad Mr. Stark, I'm so sorry," Peter says loud enough for both Tony and I to hear, his voice breaking as he tries to explain what happened through his sobs.

Tony doesn't fight his guards, his body shaking as he takes a deep breath in. He turns to the guard on his left arm as says something too quiet for me to hear, but whatever it was the guard nods his head and walks Tony toward Peter. When they're a couple feet away from each other, still out of reaching distance but close enough to talk, Tony speaks up. His voice isn't loud but it immediately dominates the now empty hallway, and though his body is gory, his voice comes out soft and comforting, as if he's in no pain.

"It's okay kid, you did your best." Tony offers a gentle smile to the broken teenager in front of him. "You did exactly what you should of. I never meant–" He cuts off, his voice breaking.

He pulls himself closer to Peter and looks at the wounds covering all of his exposed skin, more most likely hidden under the same clothing I'm wearing. I've stopped struggling against my guards and they let me stay where I am now, about 10 feet away from the two. Tony takes a shaky breath before continuing and I feel as if I'm watching something I shouldn't be, that this feels too personal for me to be witnessing. I realize as Tony begins to speak again that this must be how Peter felt this morning when I had him read out the notes they took when I received a vision.

"I never meant for you to get hurt, I hope you know that. You getting hurt is the last thing I want. Remember that, please," he tells Peter as he looks to the guard on his left once again and nods.

They begin to walk Tony away from Peter, who's given up trying to get out of his restraints. Peter watches with tear-filled eyes and a shuddering chest as Tony walks away but doesn't say a word, keeping his promise of staying quiet if he got to apologize to Tony. Tony makes his way toward me, he and his guards on their way to the doors 20 feet away from me. The guards half-carry Tony down the hallway, and when he passes me he puts his feet down. He slows the guards down enough to whisper something in my ear, a simple statement that makes my heart stop.

"Prepare for the worst."

Tony lets the guards take him down the rest of the hallway and I watch as he goes, the sentence he told me the only thing on my mind. _Prepare for the worst._ If Tony Stark says that what could happen could be the worst possibility, what chance do we have of even making it out of here alive?

After Tony walks through the doors, I look over at Peter, who's still standing in the same place he was when talking to Tony. He hangs his head, not resisting in the slightest, yet his guards don't attempt to bring him to the doors. My guards start to drag me toward them but I put my feet down, trying the same technique Tony did just moments before.

"No," I tell them. "I want him to go first."

I realize after speaking that asking the younger boy to go before me probably sounds cowardly, but I have purpose to my request. There must be a reason for why Peter was brought out first but is leaving last. I want to make sure that they don't hurt him any more than they already have, especially since he resisted and yelled so much before Tony came out.

My guards simply ignore my statement with a smirk on their faces, instead using more force to move me to the doors.

"Stop, don't have me go before him!" I pick up my voice, playing into the idea that I'm afraid of what's behind the doors.

I look up to see Peter looking at me in confusion, but when I make eye contact he realizes I have a plan behind my small outbursts.

"Let me go first, it'll calm her down," he says softly, but his guards don't budge.

"Why won't you just let him go before me?" I ask, my voice getting louder each word. _Please, just let him go first._

"We have direct orders, Miss, and we do not disobey direct orders," the guard on my left finally responds, his voice low and smoother than I expected for someone who spends his days wrestling with hostages. Or, at least, this day.

"What's so bad about letting him go first? All I want is for him to go first!"

"Just let me go, it'll shut her up," Peter says, his voice carrying what I know to be a fake annoyed tone, but is extremely believable. "Trust me, she won't stop whining 'til she gets her way."

The guards around me shift as I try to kick out and whip my head around. I yell out one more time as the doors get closer, the guards only having about five feet left to drag me until Peter is out of my eye sight.

"Please, don't make me go first!" I emphasize each word, my legs still thrashing about as my guards finally come to a stop in front of the doors. I expect them to open them and lead me through, but instead the guards keep them closed and look to each other, as if they're communicating telepathically. The one to my left nods his head, then looks to me.

"You're not going to shut up unless we let him go first, are you?" I quickly shake my head side to side, letting my eyes widen a little in faked fear. My left guard sighs, then pulls me to the side. "Get him over here quick. If word gets to Ardyn that I allowed this, I'm not going to be happy."

My right guard and both guards holding Peter nod their heads in understanding as Peter starts to make his way toward me. I come to the assumption that the guard on my left arm must be the supervisor for the group of guards in front of me, and that by letting Peter go first he could be putting himself in some danger. I begin to wonder why someone who works with the group that kidnapped me is putting either his position or himself in danger, but quickly brush the thought aside for the moment as I watch Peter come up to the door. He looks over to me and, for the first time since Tony left, whispers.

"Good luck."

The sentence is short but his face says what he can't in front of the guards. _"Thank you_ _for sticking with me and for finding a way to help,"_ his eyes say, no longer holding tears but still containing a hurting and sorrowful look I'll never be able to erase from memory. As he looks away, I catch a glimpse of regret appear in his expression, and I wish I could do something to assure him that he did nothing wrong. But with a guard at both of my arms and the same for him, the only thing I can do is respond.

"Thank you," I start, hoping that he hears what's between the words I'm speaking. "You too, Peter. Stay safe."

He doesn't look back to me as he walks through the doors in front of me, but I catch his shoulders rising from a deep breath as he and his guards step into the dark hallway.

The doors shut after Peter and my guards and I wait silently for a few minutes. I don't know the reason of our waiting, but I don't say anything against it. Though I was acting afraid before, I'm still not entirely pleased with the idea of going into that hallway.

After a few minutes, my guards abruptly walk me up to the doors. With a swift swipe of my left guard's key-card, the door clicks, unlocking. The guards open the doors without hesitation, leading me into the darkness that awaits behind the doors I tried so hard just minutes ago not to go through. As we walk through, the doors quickly shut behind us, a small click signalling that there is no going back now. My heart begins to beat harder, making it a little hard to breathe. I notice my arms start to shake as my eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. I try to calm my breathing as the guards situate themselves, succeeding only enough to slow down the suffocating thoughts racing through my head.

Once my head clears of the worrying thoughts, I take a moment to look around me. Due to my nervousness about entering the doors, I didn't even notice that what we entered wasn't a hallway but another room. No bigger than ten by ten feet, the room is slightly illuminated by four small blue lights– one in each corner. As I'm looking around the room, my guards release their grasp on my arms. I look to them in surprise as they've barely even let me use my own legs, let alone completely let me be on my own. The guard that was on my left arm nods his head as he focuses back on whatever he was working on. After a few moments they turn back to me, and the one that was on my left arm walks up to me.

"I would like to do this the easy way, if you'll cooperate," he says, though his words have less bite to them than how the others I've dealt with here spoke to me. _I must be growing on him,_ I think, a small smile appearing on my face at the ridiculous thought.

"I suppose that depends on what I'll be cooperating with," I reply, and he lets out a small laugh.

"You know, out of all the people I've had to deal with, you're certainly the most fiery." He takes a breath as he lightly takes my arm and guides me toward the back of the room. "And yet, you're the only one I've come to sympathize with," he adds under his breath as we walk away from the other guard.

My eyes widen as I take in what he's said, and I turn my head to meet his eyes. "Don't make me regret doing this," he whispers as we walk up to a transparent cylinder that highly resembles the one I was interrogated in.

"I... won't?" I reply, still unsure of exactly what is going on.

"Secine, your assistance is no longer needed. Please return to your post to finish your shift," the guard says to the other standing at the door. The guard previously on my right arm nods and opens the door without question, leaving promptly.

As soon as the door shuts, the guard in front of me turns back to meet my eyes. When he does, I find they hold an intense worry. He takes a nervous breath before he speaks.

"We don't have much time. They were expecting you ten minutes ago. If they question you when you get up there, make something up," he speaks quickly, stepping back from me to pace a little. A few seconds later he shakes his head side to side. "No, that won't work. They'll know your lying. They always do."

At this statement my blood turns cold. My heart pounds as he continues to pace in front of me. He shakes his head to the side continuously, but after a few seconds he turns to me sharply.

"We have to knock you out."

"What?" I reply in shock, my eyes wide. "What are you... What's going on?"

The guard steps toward me and I instinctively take a step back to match. At my retraction, his eyes soften and he reaches an arm out to me. His dark hand meets my arm, not at all in the same hostility that he showed earlier.

"I'm not here to hurt you. I'm on your side, I promise." He takes a small breath, taking his hand from my arm and gesturing to the uniform he's wearing. "I know it doesn't look like it, but you have to trust me. And honestly, you don't have an option– I'm all you've got."

Though I don't want to, I start to nod my head. He's not wrong by saying he's my only backup right now, and I need all the help I can get. But that doesn't mean he's going to get my trust without earning it.

"That may be true," I start, "but how am I supposed to know this isn't just another tactic? An extreme show of good cop and bad cop? I don't even know your name, and you're asking me to trust you?"

He nods before speaking. "I get it. You've been given almost every reason to not trust me. But I can try to give you reason to." He takes a shaky breath, looking at me as he leans onto the wall next to him.

"My name's Traiger. Bradley Traiger. I'm 38. I live a few minutes away from this facility, and the only reason I even got into this type of work is because I needed the money and the owner here had a debt to pay up on. I swore I'd never get into this stuff, but when the money went completely dry, I had no other choice. My little girl was going to bed with multiple layers on because the heat had gone out. My wife, Sofia, was working three different jobs trying to bring in as much as possible. We had to ration out our food at the start of each month. I couldn't make my daughter or the love of my life go through that anymore. So I took up this job.

"Now we keep the house too hot and my daughter gets dessert every night. We went on vacation just last month, down to the Bahamas. My wife only works one job now, and it's not even full-time. She spends the rest of her time with Aymee– that's my daughter's name. I go to work when Aymee goes to school, and get back right before she gets home. I don't want to do the work I do here, but it gives my family the life they deserve, so I do it. I can't go back to the way it was before. But I can't keep doing this." Bradley stops for a moment to take another shaky breath, and his expression takes on a new emotion. Desperation.

"Please, even if you don't fully trust me, trust me enough to let me help you. To let me finally do some good in a place where I've done so much bad."

I take a moment to let this all settle in. Bradley pulls up the sleeves of his uniform out of nervousness, revealing hazelnut skin that has an extreme amount of semi-healed wounds. Finally, I take a deep breath and think to what my teammates would want me to do. What Tony, Steve, Nat would want.

What Pietro would want.

"Okay."

Just this one word is enough to spring Bradley off the wall he was leaning on and toward me. He doesn't come closer than three feet, learning from my reaction before.

"I trust you, Bradley. Please don't make me regret that." I think back to when he said a similar line to me not too long ago. "So, what did I just sign myself up for?"

Bradley takes a moment to collect his thoughts before speaking, but when he does, I realize this isn't a plan he thought up off the top of his head. He knew what was going to happen. He knew that one day he'd come across someone that he could help.

"We're going to make sure you and as many of your teammates as possible make it out of here alive. Because right now, you're all pretty screwed."

  


~~~

  


"I don't know many details of how whatever's up there is set up, but I know the basics," Bradley starts. I keep my slight distance from him despite both of us accepting that we're on the same side, but if he's bothered by it, he doesn't show. His tone instantly becomes more confident as he begins to explain his plan, as if he's simply explaining an extraction plan to his group of guards instead of explaining a plan to escape a kidnapping.

"That clear tube behind you is going to shoot you up to the arena. They expected you up there a while ago, but there's no way they'll start it without you. No one can get in here from the door, and no one can come down through the tube, so we have some time and privacy to prepare.

"When you get into the arena, I don't know what you should expect. I'm pretty high up here, but only Ardyn and the developers really know what's happening up there. Maybe not even the developers. Ardyn doesn't share a whole lot."

"Sorry, who's Ardyn?" I interrupt quickly, not wanting to waste too much time.

"Oh, sorry, he's the owner of this whole place. He'snew– his dad used to run it until he kicked the bucket. Kid showed no emotion, still doesn't, unless it'sanger. If I had to guess he'sjust about your age: eighteen, maybe nineteen. Has the same piercing blue eyes that his dad did, and the color is supposed to match the lighting in this place. They're a... strange family, to say the least."

My mind instantly flashes to the boy who knocked me down right as I was about to escape. An unexplainable rage settles over me as I realize that I came face to face with my kidnapper and didn'teven know it. My mouth settles into a straight line as I force out my thoughts.

"I think I've had the pleasure of meeting him," I say, and Bradley's face turns sympathetic. He goes to say something else, but I quickly cut him off. "What's the first step in this plan?"

Bradley doesn't look pleased at my attempt of changing the topic, but he understands that we have limited time. He nods his head as he continues on.

"Of course. The first step is the simplest: I'mgoing to have to knock you out."

I let out a small sigh as I respond. "I still don'tsee how this helps me."

He answers simply. "They can't question where you've been if you're passed out. Easiest way to make it seem convincing? Make it look like you were being uncooperative and your guards took a swing to shut you up. And they won't wait for you to wake up so they can question you; we've already wasted a lot of their time, and they won't want to wait longer.

"After you're sent into the arena and, hopefully, wake up before whatever is going to happen starts, I can't do anything to help you from the outside. You're completely on your own."

My hands start to shake when he says this, my nerves breaking through finally. _You're completely on your own._ I can't help but think of all the ways he's right, my mind taking me into dark places I had hoped not to go to. I take a few small breaths, trying to catch the air that seemed to suddenly disappear from my throat. Bradley sees my oncoming spiral and speaks up quickly, still staying a distance away from me.

"Hey, hey, you're going to be okay," he says. "Don't worry. You're going to get out of here, but this can only work if you stay in one piece, both physically and mentally, okay?"

I nod my head slightly, slowing my breathing down a little. After a moment, I make eye contact with him, and nod my head with more confidence. "Okay. You're right. I can do that."

"Okay, good." Bradley offers me a warm smile as he walks to the other side of the room, placing his hands on a small counter top.

When he does, a small white light illuminates the room around us, and a door slides open at his feet. He bends over and grabs a small vial, one that looks almost identical to the one I slid into my pocket before trying to escape. I realize I never checked if it was still there after my interrogation, and I quickly run a hand over my pockets. When I pat down my left back pocket, a feel a small bump where there shouldn't be one, and a wave of relief overcomes me. Bradley turns back around and walks back over to me, still holding the vial.

"It's a good thing we were busy today, or else you would've been busted. I know you have one of these," Bradley says as he holds out the vial in front of him, in case I wasn't aware what he was holding. I debate acting as if I don't know what he's talking about, but decide against it. We have too little time for lies.

I pull the small vial out of my back pocket, the writing reflecting the blue light of the room. I don't let it leave my hand, but I show it to Bradley.

"This?" I ask, and Bradley comes closer to read what the handwriting says. His eyes widen just as mine did when I first read it, and he looks up to me quickly.

"You have the revival serum." He doesn't ask this, instead cutting right to the chase. I nod my head, and he gently closes my hand around the vial. Pushing my hand back, he shakes his head quickly.

"You have to keep that safe. Even just a little of that could be enough to save your life. It says one dose, but really you only need a drop or two for most revivals. What you have could literally be the difference between life and death up there. Be careful with it." Bradley takes a small breath as I put the vial back into my pocket, closing his eyes for a short moment before continuing his plan. He extends his hand to me, placing the other small vial in my hand.

"I'm going to be honest with you. I have no clue what this does, but it was the only vial with anything in it. I can't read the writing in this lighting, so be careful with this one too. I wish I could give you a slight idea of what it is, but your guess is as good as mine. All I know is you're going to need all the help you can get up there, so even if I don't know if it'll help you, I want you to have it anyway.

"When you get up there, make sure you do just as I'm telling you now. What I know for sure is that there's going to be a bait of sorts in the center of everyone. They want it to be a bloodbath. If you guys don't kill each other, they'll find ways for you to die anyway. Whatever you do, don't run toward the center. You'll die before you can even try to make a difference. Trust me.

"After the initial fight, I can't help you. I don't know what's going to happen after that, but what I do know is they have profiles for all of you. Statistics. Bets. If they were going to put money on who gets out of here alive, you're pretty low the list. This comes at an advantage for you, though– just from what I've seen from you today, you'll definitely surprise them. They don't know who you are, who you're allies with, or what you can do. They're expecting you to attempt to do this all on your own, and listen to me when I say this: you'll never win on your own. You need allies. Make friends, and do it quick. The deadlier your allies are, the better chance of you staying alive. Go for the assassins. James Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, people like them. If you have them on your side, it's less of a chance they'll kill you, and you'll have them to help protect you. Even if none of you want to kill each other, there's more than just you up there. You have enemies at every angle."

I nod my head at all this information, trying to take in as much as possible. After a few seconds of silence, I make eye contact with him.

"Is there anything else I should know?" I ask him softly. I've begun to shake from nerves once again, though this time I keep my emotions under control.

"I've told you everything I know. Now we just hope to see if that's enough to keep you and your friends alive."

With this, I step toward him. I keep eye contact as I nod to him, signalling I'm ready to start the plan.

"Thank you, Bradley," I whisper as he lifts his arm.

"I wish you luck, Miss Ridley. Don't let me down."

I close my eyes as his fist hurtles toward my face, wishing a quick goodbye to the life I had before the nightmares begin.


	4. tribus

**PART THREE.**

_the inception_

"Aveline Ridley, please come to attention. You have 35 seconds until initiation."

"Aveline Ridley, please come to attention. You have 25 seconds until initiation."

I'm opening my eyes gingerly as the voice surrounding me finishes alerting me of the time I have left until initiation, whatever that is. As I fully open my eyes and look around outside the transparent cylinder I'm in, I take a breath in awe at the sight in front of me. The landscape all around me is a vivid rainforest, the trees reaching as high as I can see and the sky a bright blue against the water behind me. I look down at my feet, the water stretching from me to about three-hundred feet behind me, a large building that resembles a hut sitting about two-hundred feet in front of me. Between me and the building there's a field of green grass, resembling a strictly-kept meadow. I turn around me and look across the water stretching from me to about three-hundred feet away. Beyond the water lies a huge, beautiful rainforest. In awe, I turn back, my eyes unable to take in the beauty I've been placed in front of.

After a moment, I begin to think of how I got here as my memories flood back. Each word of wisdom from Bradley echoes in my ears, and though I should be worried about what lies in front of me, I can't help but smile. The first step of the plan worked.

I go to look closer at the building, but my eyesight gets distracted by a flash beside it: another cylinder. My heart stops as I lean forward to get a closer look. I can't tell who is in it, and as I flick my eyes to the right I see another cylinder. My eyes widen as I finally look to my right, finding more and more cylinders. As the cylinders get closer to me, I can pick out some teammates, the rest being a bit too far away for me to place them. My breathing quickens as I look all the way to my right and see Nat with a deadly look on her face, her hands tapping her sides. She looks bare without her weapons, and I can tell she's uncomfortable without the comfort of them. At the feel of my gaze she looks my way, and her face softens when she sees me. Her eyes scream with worry as she presses her hand onto her cylinder.

"Are you okay?" She mouths. The fingers she has pressed against the glass begin to tap once again, revealing an anxious tick I didn't realize Nat had.

"I'm okay," I mouth back. "What's going on?"

She simply shakes her head. "We were... compromised."

My spine shivers when she says this. The Avengers, the world's protectors, couldn't protect themselves. A strange feeling of guilt settles over me but I shake it off. It's not my fault we're here, but it could be my fault if we don't get out.

When I nod my head shakily, gives me a concerned look. "We'll be okay. Don't worry," she mouths reassuringly, offering a small smile.

I smile back and nod again before averting my eyes from her gaze. I see her take her hand down from the cylinder and focus on the obstacle in front of us. I turn to my left side automatically, and I'm not sure who exactly I was looking for but it certainly wasn't who I found.

Pietro.

I stutter in a quick breath as I press myself up to the glass of my cylinder, wishing for him to turn to me. He's completely focused on the water below him, probably attempting to figure out how fast he needs to run to get across it. With no options left and little time, I resort to banging my fists on the glass. When I do, a shock runs through my hands and up my arms, making me step back. I scrunch my eyes in confusion as I hit the glass again, Pietro still not looking up. As I do I receive another shock, and I quickly realize that the glass must have a defense mechanism for if someone attempted to break out. But as a voice above me alerts me that there's only ten seconds until initiation, I forget my regard for safety and attack the cylinder.

"Pietro!" I yell, though I'm sure he can't hear me. My hands keep hitting the glass, the shock growing by each hit. "Pietro! It's Aveline! Pietro, please!"

He's still staring directly down, not noticing my yelling or large movements. With tears filling my eyes in frustration, I yell his name one last time, louder than any of the times before.

"Pietro!"

His head jerks up and looks directly at me, relief filling his eyes. He presses his hands to his cylinder, but before he can say anything a loud voice from outside the cylinder begins to speak. The ominously familiar voice tears my eyes away from Pietro and points them to the sky, looking for where the words are coming from.

"Welcome to Fluer Enterprises. I'm sorry we had to meet in this manner, but I won't lie– this will be fun. For me, at least." The voice sounds as if it belongs to a young male, just around my age. He sounds confident in what he's saying, but the age of his voice seems to almost contradict the seriousness he's trying to portray.

"If you've taken a moment to look around you, you'll find an arena filled to the brim with trees, water, and other surprises that you'll find along the way. In the building in front of you lies supplies and weapons. What you decide to do with the said circumstances is up to you, but let it be known we not only will not stop death, but we encourage it: Only one of you will make it out of here alive, but how that occurs is up to you. For the most part."

My breath hitches in my throat as I turn to Pietro, who's already looking to me. Teardrops sprinkle his cheeks, and it takes my entire might to not try and explain my plan to him. I put a hand onto the glass, much gentler than my previous actions, mirroring the stance Pietro is holding in his cylinder. 

"Don't worry." I mouth this simple statement to him, offering a small smile. It's not much, but it's the best I can do at this point. He nods before taking his eyes away from me, turning to the direction of the voice.

"In thirty seconds, you will be released, and the games will begin. I wish you all luck. May the best survive." A small clicking noise tells me that the person speaking has turned off whatever he was using to project his voice to us, creating an even emptier quiet than what I felt before. 

My blood turns cold after the voice stops speaking. Not necessarily because of what he's said, but at the realization of his identity: Ardyn, the blue-eyed-boy who captured me moments before my escape. My mind flashes to earlier today, when he threw and ordered me around just for fun. _Good luck, Miss Ridley. You'll need it._ My emotions instantly turn completely to anger, and I wish more than anything that I could be face to face with him again now that I know who he is. My anger begins to make my hands shake, but I force myself to take a few deep breaths and calm myself down. I won't get anywhere if all I'm thinking of is revenge.

I look over to Nat, keeping loose track of the amount of time we have left, to find that she's already taken a running stance. She must've already weighed out the possible consequences of running toward the center compared to trying to survive this without weapons. With skills like hers, I don't blame her. 

As I begin to look around at the scenery once again, I start to think of allies I might have in the arena. Due to Natasha's display of kindness to me, I immediately count her. I don't even waste thought on Pietro, as I know he'll stay by my side more than I'd probably like, but I won't argue it at this point. I know from exiting interrogation that both Tony and Peter are also here. I know the two will most likely team up, or Tony will at least protect Peter to the most of his ability. Though we might not be direct allies, I know I won't find an enemy in Tony or Peter. I look past Natasha at the two cylinders past her, as they're the only ones I can see into. Bucky stands in the one next to Natasha, Steve next to him. 

Though Steve and I aren't particularly close, Bucky and I became good friends over the years I've lived at the facility, our difficulties socializing with the other Avengers at parties originally bringing us together. Eventually, we began to socialize with the others as a team, one of us helping the other when it became a bit too overwhelming. We both have extremely different backgrounds and much different reasons to not like the spotlight, but we both understand the other's want to stay out of it. I know I'll have Bucky as an ally in this, and in most cases, wherever Bucky goes Steve will follow. I add the two names to the small mental list I'm making.

Bucky stands with a determined stance, his face staring directly forward. When I look to Steve I'm surprised to find that he's not holding the same position but instead is pacing a bit, his head turning to Bucky every few seconds. He makes me twitch with nerves just by looking at him, so I tear my eyes away from the captain before I can get too nervous. 

I turn to my right and I see Pietro attempt to meet my eyes, but I refuse for the moment. My mental countdown tells me that there's about fifteen seconds left, and I don't have the time to try to talk to Pietro right now. I look past him to the cylinder at his right, where a familiar woman stands with a powerful stance. Her green skin seems to glow in the sunlight, her pink-tipped hair flowing over her shoulders. She stands as if nothing has feared her, her chin held high and her eyes casting down. I instantly feel intimidated by her and almost feel the need to shrink away from her presence, but I continue to look at her. Not only do I want the woman who makes me fearful just by looking at her as an ally, but I feel like I know her. My mind ponders the thought for a moment, but I can't figure out from where. 

I spend a few more moments trying to figure out why I recognize the green woman before a drop of my stomach tells me there's a strange familiarity about this setting. I try to place it as the voice finally counts down from five, but I don't realize it until the cylinders shrink into the ground quickly and my legs throw me forward.

A collection of sounds, images, and feelings hit me all at once as I watch the people around me run to the center. I fall to my knees as I hear the screams, feel the pain in my side and my chest, and see the deaths in front of me all over again, each one becoming more realistic than the last. It isn't until a flash of blue whirs past me and grabs onto my arm that I'm snapped out of my thoughts. I look up to find Pietro looking down at me with worried but nervous eyes.

"Aveline, we need to go! Now!"

I shake my head, trying to find the words to explain to him what's going on. I begin to take quicker breaths as I try to get the most I can out in the little time we have. 

"Pietro, this is it. The vision." His eyes widen as I say this, and he kneels down to my level. "You have to go. You have to get out of here."

"I'm not going. Not without you." His eyes pierce mine, a look of determination covering his face. 

"You have to. Please, trust me, Piet. I'll find you. You just can't stay here. You have to stay safe." He opens his mouth to respond, but I cut him off quickly, knowing I'm running out of time. "Please, Pietro. Go."

As I lay a hand on his arm he nods, avoiding my eyes as he stands up. He gives me one last look before speeding away, and I swear I hear the winds whisper, "You stay safe, too, my love."

With trembling legs and a plan that goes exactly against what Bradley told me to do, I stand carefully. I take a deep breath, shaking out my arms, then begin to run toward the center of the circle, knowing my death could quite possibly be waiting for me there.

~~~

I make my way quickly through the grass, growing closer and closer toward the hut of supplies. Many people are already inside the building, and when I'm about fifty feet away from the entrance, my right foot catches on something. I'm thrown to the ground, my heart stopping as I recall the details of my vision. All of my senses scream at me to stand up and get out of here as quickly as possible, but I ignore them painfully.

_This is all part of the plan. Stick to the plan._

I wait for a moment, hoping that what I'm doing will end up helping me. But when it's been almost ten seconds of me on the ground, I begin to pick myself back up. That is, of course, until a flash of pink and black grabs me by the arm and yanks me the rest of the way up.

Gamora's eyes search me quickly, her height over me making me feel even smaller under her intense gaze. I expect to hear a loud, deadly voice, but instead hear a soothing, motherly tone.

"Are you alright?" I now see that her eyes don't hold an anger at me, but concern. "You need to get out of here. It's not safe."

I can only nod in response, and I turn to make my way to the supplies building but she grabs my arm tighter.

"No, you can't go in there." Her eyes widen in worry as she shakes her head. "They aren't hurting each other yet, but it's only a matter of time."

She pulls a large pack I had neglected to notice off her back and I begin to step away, unsure of how to handle this situation. She quickly pulls out a knife, along with some other small supplies and a small tote, shoving the items into my hands. I flinch when she forces the knife in my direction, but she gently opens my hand and places the handle in it, closing my fingers around it. She hastily puts the other supplies into the tote before I can get a good look at what she's given me, but I accept it gratefully as she steps back.

I open my mouth to try to say something, but only two words come out: "Thank you."

She smiles softly in return. "What's your name, young one?"

"Aveline. Aveline Ridley. You're Gamora, right?" I ask the question quickly, knowing that at any moment a fight could break out, putting the two of us right in the center. She nods her head with speed, acknowledging the lack of time as well.

"I am. I'd like to continue our chat, but could we meet at a different place? Here is... not safe." She speaks with a softness and vagueness that could only be attributed to a mother trying to explain something to a young child, and I can't help but wonder if she was taken away from a family.

"Sure. I'm probably going to try to get across the water, can we meet up at the shore at dusk tonight?" I make the proposition off the top of my head, and realize that I had already had my mind set on crossing the water though I hadn't put thought to it.

"A wise idea. I will attempt to make it to the shore by dusk, but do not worry if I'm not there. If I'm not there tonight, I will be tomorrow night. It was lovely meeting you, Aveline. Keep that knife on you, and don't go down without a fight." At this she turns and jogs off, and I can see the handles of two large swords poking out of her pack.

I pause for a moment, trying to understand the strange interaction, but am quickly thrown back into reality as an arrow flies in front of my face. I gasp and retract back, quickly beginning to run in the opposite direction of the arrow. I look over my shoulder in the direction that the arrow originally came from, but as I do I trip over myself once again, landing strange on my left knee. I go to stand and keep moving, but instantly fall again, my leg being unable to hold my weight. My breath quickens at the thought of not being able to move when I'm surrounded by a familiar blue. I'm lifted off the ground in an instant and raced across the field, the strong arms not letting me go even after I'm back on the ground. Pietro looks at me with a passionate worry, his hands already testing the swelling on my knee.

"Piet, I told you not to worry about me. And I barely even hurt my knee, I just wasn't expecting it to hurt as much as it did when I stood. You should be somewhere safe," I lightly scold him, though having him near for just the past few seconds has already calmed me down.

"And I told you to be safe, and look at you. You're talking to dangerous strangers, almost hit by an arrow which could have killed you had it been just a few inches closer, and a broken knee. I should be the one scolding you, not the other way around." Pietro doesn't take his eyes off my knee as he speaks, his worry boiling into a caring anger. Coming from anyone else, the words he spoke would make me nervous for what's coming next, but I know he isn't here to reprimand me. I take one of his hands in mine, and with my other hand I tilt his head up so I can meet his eyes.

"We both know my knee isn't broken, love. And I'm sorry that I was a bit irresponsible, but considering you had supposedly left before I spoke to Gamora and was almost hit by an arrow and shouldn't know that either of those happened, I think it's safe to say that we've both made some bad decisions already." I give Pietro a teasing smile as he rolls his eyes. He then scoops me up in his arms without warning, making a gasp escape my lips, which he laughs at lightly.

"Where to, princess?" Pietro asks, preparing to run to wherever I say. I look up at him as a thought comes to mind, a playful smile growing on my face.

"Can you run over water?"

"You want me to run over water?" Pietro asks, an amused look on his face. "I suppose I've never tried it before."

The statement makes my jaw drop. "You have super speed and you've never tried to run over water?" I ask, astonished at the idea. "If I got powers that let me run really fast, that'd be the first thing I tried!"

Pietro laughs at my surprised response, taking a small breath while re-positioning his stance. He looks down to me with a smirk on his face and I watch as he shakes the hair out of his eyesight and leans forward. Right as he's taking a deep breath, I realize what's truly happening.

"Wait!" I yell, unable to contain my laughter. "Put me down! I don't want to be with you on the first trip if it turns out you can't make it over!"

Pietro fakes hurt, his mouth opening to scoff but the sound never coming out. "Oh, so you ask me to run over water, but don't have enough faith that I'll actually make it over? Thanks for the confidence boost." He drops me, making sure I land on my good leg. Rolling his eyes then giving me a quick kiss, I watch the blue blur race away, and within a matter of seconds he's back– but he's soaked.

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing you didn't come with," Pietro starts, walking toward me confidently as a devilish grin spreading across his face. "Or maybe I jumped in just so I could do this."

I see his attack coming. He jumps at me with open arms and I manage to duck and roll away before he can wrap his arms around me. I know he can't use his super speed to catch me, as he'd just dry himself off if he did. I laugh when I see Pietro realize this, his confident expression dropping into dismay, but he quickly takes to running normally instead. I test putting weight on my knee, and though it hurts some it just feels like I twisted it slightly. Knowing that I shouldn't put too much pressure on it, I lightly run away from Pietro. However, on top of me being cautious with my leg and Pietro being a fast runner even without his enhanced speed, he's caught up to me in seconds. As soon as he's close enough I'm engulfed in a bone-crushing, soaking wet hug– not to mention that the water clinging to his arena suit is freezing.

"Pietro!" I exclaim, shivering in his embrace. "You're so cold!"

"I thought you'd warm me up!" He turns me around so that we're face to face, or as close to it as we can be. Though I'm decently tall, Pietro still stands about a half a foot taller than me. "You were the one who insisted on staying here while I did my test run anyway. You probably got bored without me here, so I brought some of the action back!" He winks, and I roll my eyes as I continue to shiver in his arms.

"Very thoughtful, but that doesn't make this, or you, any less cold. And as much as I'd like to wait until you're dry so that I don't have to hold onto someone covered in freezing water, we should probably get moving. We won't be safe here for much longer."

Pietro's smile falters for a moment and he shifts his eyes to the ground. Taking a deep breath, he brings the full smile back to his face and looks to me. A glimmer of mischief hints at his blue eyes. "You're right. Hold on tight, love. This could get interesting."

He picks me up as I look to him in protest. "Wait! I thought you just said you made it across fine!"

"Well, I did," Pietro starts, tilting his head as if he's in deep thought, "but that was when I was carrying only one person across. Now there's two, which might be a bit different. So, be prepared to get a little wet?"

I laugh and shake my head. "Guess that's what I get for asking to stay behind on the test run."

Pietro laughs, then pulls me closer to him as he takes off. I'm immediately thrown to the memory of this morning, the same nauseous feeling overcoming me as we travel across the water. What feels like in less than a second, we've made it across the water. I look at Pietro in awe, seeing that not only did he get us across the water but he did so without sinking. He sets me down gently onto the sand, keeping an arm around my waist as I look up to him.

"I still don't understand how you don't feel sick after doing that. It still gets me. Every time." Pietro laughs, shrugging his shoulders.

"I've just had lots of practice, I guess." 

Pietro takes his arm off of my waist and bends over, and I almost expect to see him tying his shoes but I realize that the shoes we have don't have laces. They're sturdy, strapped boots, and look as though they've been specially made for environments like these. Instead, Pietro grabs tight onto the bottom of his left pant leg, and when he does so a stream of water comes out. I raise a hand to my face and try to cover my laugh as he looks at me with a teasing annoyance.

"If it's possible, I'd like to avoid doing that as much as possible. You might not have gotten wet, Ave, but I basically just went swimming." Pietro switches legs as I let out a laugh. I take a seat on the soft sand next to where he's standing, meeting his eyes.

"Sorry babe," I say with a small smile. "But at least you got to go for a swim?"

"Wasn't looking for a swim, but sure." Pietro stands up, water still dripping down his suit. "Now if you'll excuse me for a second," he says with a wink. A blue blur speeds past me, kicking up lots of sand, only to return within the second. Pietro is completely dry when he comes back and he runs a quick hand through his hair to smooth it down.

"Alright, now that that's all taken care of," Pietro starts, "where are we going?"

I ponder the thought for a moment, looking around at the new scenery. I have absolutely no idea where we should go, what we should do, or if there's anyone else around. I decide to act on the last idea first, because if we can find an ally over here before more people show up, it would be an advantage for us.

"Wherever there's people."

Pietro looks at me with slight confusion, and just as I'm about to explain my thoughts his face clears and he nods his head in understanding. He adopts a serious look as he looks at me once more, as if he's studying the features on my face.

"I'll start looking around." He's about to run off again when I stop him.

"No, wait. I think we should do this together. Without powers," I tell him. He looks a little unsure of the idea at first, but hesitantly nods his head after a moment. I begin to walk toward him when I feel the pain in my knee again, and I roll my eyes at myself. "Okay, one exception. But after this, no powers."

Pietro laughs as I place my hands on my knee and initiate the healing process. I feel the coolness of the power surround my knee, the pain already receding. In seconds the pain is completely gone and my knee is back to its normal size. I walk over to Pietro with confidence, and he smiles when I reach him, his hand finding mine. We look behind us at the seemingly small island, and when we turn our attention back to the forest in front of us, I say one last sentence before starting to walk.

"Let the search begin."

~~~

A sharp snap of a tree branch I've stepped on breaks the comfortable silence Pietro and I have fallen into, and I let out a small sigh before turning my head to meet his eyes.

"Piet, I don't think there's anyone here. We've been walking for a pretty long time, and it's not like whoever's here would have too much of a head start to get in front of us." Pietro nods his head in response before slowing down. He releases my hand and takes a seat on the forest floor, leaning against an insanely tall tree.

"Yeah," he says through a release of breath. "You're probably right. Wanna rest for a second?"

I don't respond, instead simply taking a seat next to him. I realize that I still have yet to look through the pack Gamora shoved into my arms before running off, so I take it off my shoulder and undo the buckle holding it secure. I begin to fish my hands through the crammed supplies, but quickly take to unpacking it instead, as I can't see what's actually in the bag. The first item I pull out is a small ration pack, which on a normal diet for two people would probably last a day or two, but with some inventive thinking and cutting back could easily last a week. I set that aside and let Pietro take a look at it as I pull out the next item.

I pull out a small item, covered in what looks to be a case, and at first I'm not sure what to make of it. I turn it in my hands, looking for the way to open it, and finally I resort to simply pulling at it in different directions. It takes a few tries but I finally get it to open when I slide the top to the right, and I take a small gasp as I see what it is.

"You alright?" Pietro asks at my jump, but I see his eyes widen as he looks at what's in my hands. It's a small, silver pistol, with two extra rounds in the case as well. I carefully close the case, gently placing the gun in between me and Pietro.

"Let's hope we never have to use that," I whisper as I shakily pull out the next item.

My hands wrap around a large item, and I know instantly what it is: a canteen. I pull it out quickly, but find it surprisingly light. My hope falters slightly as I come to the realization that there's most likely nothing in it, but I look just to make sure. I unscrew the cap but find that my suspicions were right, so I close it tightly then toss it to the side. Pietro stays as quiet as I do during my unpacking, probably due to both being a little tired and not wanting to comment on the fact that besides the food, not a lot of these things can help us at the moment. 

I pull out a few more small things: another pack of food, a box of tampons (which I find surprising but could be very helpful depending on how long we're stuck here), and a small vial. My eyes widen when they see the vial, and I impulsively drop it. Pietro jumps for the vial and catches it, but I don't hear his scolding, my mind too preoccupied. My hands search my body for the two vials I left with, and I feel tears come to my eyes in frustration right before I find where they've been hidden. I feel a couple bumps on the inside of my right boot, and when I take it off and look inside, I see both vials taped to it, along with a note. I reach to take the note out, but take a moment to think. Whoever's running this has to be incredibly smart, and even if not, they wouldn't have an arena –especially one filled with superheroes who are there only to kill each other– be without cameras. If someone had been watching my actions before they've probably already caught on that I have something, but I don't dare to take the note out for anyone to see. I try to act casual as I look through my boot, almost as if I'm searching for a pesky rock, but my eyes stay glued to the note. It's only a few sentences, but it's enough to get the point across.

  


_Aveline,_

_I have faith that you can make it out of there alive, and with many of your teammates, but you have to remember: not everyone, or everything, is an ally. People will die, and possibly because of you, but you can't let it stain your hands or your conscience. You're a good kid, Aveline. You've got heart and you've got brains. Don't let this place take either of those from you. I look forward to meeting you again._

_–Bradley_

_P.S.– pretty good hiding spot, right?_

  


My eyes tear up and my hands shake as I put the boot back on, leaving the note in its secure place. Pietro looks to me in confusion, but doesn't ask of it yet. I know he noticed the note, and he probably understands that if I wasn't willing to take it out in the open that we shouldn't talk about it in the open either. I take a deep breath before taking hold of the pack again.

"Is there anything I missed?" I ask with shaky words, and Pietro places a hand of comfort on my arm.

"No, you got it all." He takes a breath, his thumb drawing small circles on my wrist. "Should we keep looking around or start to look for water? I don't think the water that we ran over is good for drinking, but I'm sure there's another place we can find some around here."

I nod my head, thankful for the change in subject. "We should probably look for water now. If someone else were here, we probably would've found them by now." We stand and I quickly brush the dirt off my suit. I meet Pietro's eyes after and he takes my hand, giving it a light squeeze in assurance.

We begin to walk in no particular direction, neither of us sure on where we are or where we should be going but knowing that Pietro can get us back to the shore in a matter of seconds should that be necessary. I think about his enhancement for a moment, and almost turn to him to ask if instead of us walking around and wasting more time if he would just do a quick sweep of the area, but a jolt to my side stops my thoughts. I look to Pietro, or more accurately, where Pietro was a moment before. I gasp as I see Pietro on the ground, clutching his left leg with the hand I'm not holding, and I quickly let go of his other hand and drop to the ground next to him. Out of instinct, I immediately put my hands on his leg and try to heal him without a second thought, and I don't realize until it's too late that I made a mistake.

"Aveline, you've got to get out of here," Pietro says quickly with an anxious voice, his hands gently pushing me out of the way. "I'll find you, I promise I will, but you can't stay here. There's something else here, it's only a matter of time until–"

He's cut off abruptly by a snarl coming from behind us. My eyes widen in panic as we both turn slowly. I grab Pietro's arm when I see the animal.

It's closing in on us as a painfully slow speed, but I can tell by its stance that if we were to try to run off that it would be able to catch us. Its gold eyes are staring daggers into mine, and it's looking only at me, like it forgot Pietro was here completely. Its large, wolf-like body continues to make its way toward us, rising and falling with each great breath it takes. The gray fur atop its back looks almost sharp and stiff, and makes me think that touching it would draw blood. It continues to put one foot in front of the other yet doesn't make any more noise, so slowly I begin to move my hands back to Pietro's leg. I finally let my eyes take in what happened to him, and when I do I find myself surprised that Pietro isn't crying out in pain.

The left leg of his suit is torn to shreds, the entire section below his knee either gone already or will be soon. His leg itself is a bright red, and though I'm not an expert in the medical field, even I can tell an infection has started to eat its way at his wound. It's a large, open, and painful wound, one that makes me cringe at just the thought of how much it hurts for him. It looks as though the wolf-like creature took a bite out of his leg, though if some of his leg is indeed missing, it's not a lot. No longer caring if the animal attacks due to my quicker movements, I place my hands on his leg and instantly begin healing him. I close my eyes, the process straining me more than usual. I feel his leg repairing itself under my fingertips, and I finally open my eyes to see the animal approaching us at a quicker rate. My worry begins to show through my healing as my hands shake and the process slows a bit, but I force my hands harder onto Pietro's leg. He whips his head back in pain, his eyes slamming shut as he visibly bites his lips to keep himself quiet. I feel myself begin to weaken as I try to finish healing his leg, my breaths growing more irregular as I continue. The animal is only about ten feet away now, and I feel a tear escape my eye as I whisper.

"You're going to be okay, I promise, it’s going to be okay." I realize after saying this that I'm speaking these words more for myself than for Pietro, but I force myself to make eye contact with him. His face is scrunched with pain but he still manages to look at me, and he gives a quick nod at my words.

"W–we have to get, get out of here s–soon," he says shakily.

"Not until you're okay. I'm not leaving you until you're okay." I don't leave room for debate, but as I grow weaker with each second I start to wonder if he will be completely healed by the time I'm unable to continue on. I don't normally find myself being drained of energy this quickly, especially after the amount of training I've had with this skill, and I can't help but let my mind ask the question of how bad his injury truly is.

Feeling like I'm about to run out of energy completely, I focus all of my attention on Pietro. His leg looks much better compared to when I started; it's not red except for in the very center, the signs of infection seem to have gone away, and the wound has stitched itself up for the most part. It's now only about the size of a golf ball, and even that continues to shrink as I pour the last of my power into his leg.

"Ave." He doesn't say more than this, and when I tear my eyes from his leg to meet his I find that they're wet with tears but aren't directed at me. "We have to move, now." He gets the sentence out quickly, and begins to shuffle his body. When I don't respond, he grabs me by the arm and pulls me toward him. "Ave, now!"

I finally turn to look at where his sight has been pointed, and the animal is all but standing directly over us. I gasp and shuffle myself back with Pietro, careful not to move my hands. I start to feel the wound closing with finality, and though I feel as though I'm about to collapse right where I am, I pull together what little strength I have for him.

After just a few seconds, the wound completely closes, and I drop my hands as I fall onto Pietro. I catch myself a little, but Pietro still gets most of the hit, and I see a look of surprise on his face before I turn to the animal.

"Piet, the knife," I say with realization, and with trembling fingers I try to get it out of the pocket I placed it in after Gamora planted it in my hand. Pietro realizes that I'm trying to get it out and grabs it for me, and in a swift movement he's on his feet and has pulled me up as well.

With one arm holding me up and the other prepared to fight off the animal, Pietro adopts an expression that I've only seen him have in battle. My heart rate picks up as I realize that I don't even have the energy it takes to fight off a squirrel, let alone a foreign animal designed to kill us. Pietro continues to bring us farther back and away from the animal, and I close my eyes for a second and hope that the animal simply just leaves. Though, obviously it doesn't. As we keep moving backward, I notice that Pietro is still favoring his right leg, and I make a note to myself to check on what else might be wrong with his leg after. It's a trivial thought, but it's what keeps me from panicking.

But the distracting thought doesn't last me long. Without a moment's notice, the animal sprints toward us, driven by some unknown force. I feel Pietro prepare to use his speed but he does so with hesitance, his left leg still hurting enough for him not to be able to run to his best ability. I steal the knife from Pietro's hand without warning and prepare to fight the animal off when it suddenly stops in its tracks. Pietro and I immediately freeze, unsure of whether it's still able to attack us. It begins to fall to its side, and I watch as its legs give out and cover in blood.Once it falls completely I find that a dagger sticks out of the side of its stomach, the aim so precise that I don't even need to hear her voice to know who killed it.

"Well, if it isn't my маленький целитель and the fast twin."

My eyes widen when I see her, and I can't help but let a smile grow on my face. Natasha looks down at us from her place in the trees, choosing to stay where she is at the moment. I get the strong urge to climb up and sit with her but as I try to walk toward the tree I'm quickly reminded of how drained I am. I'm honestly surprised I'm still standing on my own, but right as the thought passes through my mind Pietro slides an arm around me and helps keep me upright. I feel a bit lightheaded after the movement, but return back to my spot next to Pietro anyway.

"Nat," I say softly, and a small smile appears on her face too. "H-how did you–"

I try to finish my sentence but the words fail as my legs collapse under me, and Pietro launches into action. My eyes feel too heavy to stay open so I let them shut, but I vaguely hear Pietro talking to me and telling me to keep them open. I try to force them open and do so for a few seconds, my eyes searching for Pietro's the whole time. I find him leaning over me, his hands cradling my head.

"Sorry, 'm tired," I mumble, my eyes closing again.

"Ave, I need you to stay awake, okay? Just a few more minutes, can you do that?" Pietro asks gently, his voice like a warm blanket late at night.

I keep my eyes shut, feeling too tired to try to open them again. I hum in response, and I feel a different pair of hands lift me up. Instead of the soft, familiar hands that were holding my head, I now feel calloused, small, worn hands. My head can't help but make the connection to the way my mother's hands felt after a long day of work, when I was much younger and she would bring me to the local laundromat and let me put the quarters in the machines. She would often play with my hair, her tough hands running through my knotted strands before picking me up and carrying me around. _Is my mother holding me?_

"Aveline, stay with us, just a little farther." 

I can't place the voice speaking to me now. It's definitely feminine, but it's not the voice that sounded like how strong coffee tastes in the morning, which belongs to my mother. Instead, it sounds like the way it feels to drive one of Tony's sleek, black cars, with no music on and all the windows closed. It sounds like the type of lonely that you want to feel sometimes, like when you've spent just a bit too much time with someone and wish to be alone in your room for a while. I feel my eyebrows scrunch in confusion over the new voice, but only for a moment– even the small movement makes me more tired.

I lean into the woman with the black-car voice instead of responding. I vaguely notice my hair being blown from my face, and I decide that it's because whoever's carrying me is running. I hear hushed whispering from above my head and I try to grasp on to a few of the words, but I don't hear enough to make any sense of it.

I open my mouth to call out to someone, but I can't pin down who. I know I was just with someone, but the name of who it was won't come to me, nor will the face or voice that comes with it. _Why can't I remember?_

I was healing him. That's why I'm tired. Whoever I was with, he got injured, I was healing him, it felt different than normal but I didn't think of it. It's never felt different except for this time. _Is there a reason it felt different?_

My breathing begins to quicken as my thoughts spiral. What was his name? A flash of white hair and fast-moving blue wisps breeze by the back of my eyelids, but I can't reach it, I can't hold onto the thought, and the image is gone as quick as it came.

"Pietro, she's going into shock, we have to get her somewhere safe. We don't have much time. I know you're hurt, but she needs help, and she needs it now. Can you run her?" 

His name. It's Pietro. I hold onto the knowledge with all I can, not letting it escape my mind again.

"I can try, but I don't know how far I'll get. There was something else in that bite; I've been hurt many times before, but nothing has lasted this long on me after Ave's healed me. I think there was some sort of poison in it. She must've taken most of it when she healed me."

The words go right over my head, but I listen to the way Pietro talks. His voice reminds me of snuggling on the couch on a cold winter's day while watching the snow drift across the windowpane. While the woman's voice was a deep purple and black, Pietro's feels more like a light pink and yellow, his voice sounding the way cotton candy feels.

I feel my body shift and before I know it I'm being taken out of the woman's arms. I let out a small sound of confusion, and I hear a small intake of air after I make the noise.

"You're going to be okay, alright? You're fine. You just have to stay with us for a few more minutes, Ave, then you're going to be okay."

This time, Pietro's voice sticks in my mind, lodging itself next to the spot I made to hold his name. I'm placed in strong hands, and I feel as if I belong here. This definitely isn't the first time I've been in these arms. I open my mouth, deciding to test words once more.

"Pietro?" The name feels both familiar and foreign on my tongue. The arms holding me jolt, then quickly pull me closer.

"I'm right here, I've got you," he says, his accent curling his words into delicate designs. Pietro's holding me. _Have we done this before?_

"I'm tired," I say hesitantly, the words not wanting to come out.

"I know, babe, but you have to stay awake for just a few minutes," he says, then pulls me even closer to his chest. "You're not going to like this very much, okay? You're going to get a little dizzy and feel like you're going to throw up but it'll be over in just a second."

My head spins at all the information. "I'm... what?"

"Just hold onto me tight, okay? We have to get you out of here."

I nod against his chest. I feel him turn and talk with the woman for a few moments, words like " _hut_ ", " _quick_ ", and " _vial_ " being thrown around a lot. One sticks out to me, vial. I have one. Someone gave me one, or I took it, or both, but I have one. In my right boot.

"Pietro, I have one." 

The whispers above me stop immediately at my statement. "You have a what, love?"

"A vial. I have one." I force the words out even though they'd rather stay in, my head beginning to pound harder with each word I say. 

"I know you do, we found it in the pack earlier, remember?" I can barely understand what he's saying anymore, with my head pounding so hard and my eyes feeling so heavy. I shake my head quickly, knowing that the vial is in my right boot. It has to be.

"No, my boot. It's in my boot, this one," I say, shaking my right foot. As I do, I feel two bumps hit against the front of my ankle. _I knew it._

Hands quickly dive into my boot. It feels strange but I don't move, letting them find it as quick as they can.

"Pietro, she's right, there's two in here." I feel her place them back in my boot. "You have to go. Now." 

Pietro doesn't respond, instead wrapping his arms around me tighter. "You ready, Ave?"

It takes a moment for me to realize he's talking to me, and that I'm Ave. Once I do, I nod my head slowly. 

"Alright, here we go."

My eyes fly open as I feel myself surround in a blue haze, and the air leaves my chest instantly. I gasp out, my stomach feeling as if it's being flipped upside down. I feel tears spring to my now closed eyes, and my chest feels like it's being demolished from the inside out. My lungs search for air and I continue to try to force anything in, but it seems to leave as quick as it came. But, just as Pietro promised, it's over in a second, but I still feel the same after we've stopped. Once we're standing still I hear myself gasping for air. A low, animalistic choking noise escapes my throat with each breath, and I feel myself drop to the ground quickly. Nervous that we're moving again, I latch onto Pietro and my eyes snap open, searching his. They're a pale blue, and look strained as well. 

"Ave, what's wrong, what's going on, talk to me!" His voice booms with worry and I flinch back from it, which makes his eyes soften with regret.

"Can't breathe," I force out, my eyes growing heavy once again. Pietro looks around urgently, then dives for my feet. He digs into my boot and grabs onto the vials and a piece of paper, quickly putting down one of the vials and letting the paper fly to the ground before bringing the other toward me. 

"Do you remember how much of this you're supposed to take?" He asks quickly, his eyes staying wide and looking around frantically, as if he's expecting something to attack.

I try to think back to when I found it, but nothing comes to mind. I'm still gasping for air and for memories when the paper floats into my lap, revealing the writing. I don't look at it, but my eyes bring themselves to the bottom. _Bradley_. 

_"You have to keep that safe. Even just a little of that could be enough to save your life. It says one dose, but really you only need a drop or two for most revivals. What you have could literally be the difference between life and death up there. Be careful with it."_

The memory burns through my mind, leaving a searing pain behind it. I cringe inwardly at the self-inflicted attack, my eyes slamming shut instinctively but I force them open right away. I tear the vial from Pietro's hands, bringing it gently to my mouth, then let two drops hit my tongue before handing it back. My head continues to scream in pain but I'm able to catch my breath right after I swallow the drops, the liquid tasting a bit metallic. I get the vial back in Pietro's hands safely, but my eyes have grown even heavier since swallowing the liquid. 

I look up to Pietro with tired, drooping eyes, and once I do so he moves so that he's planted next to me. He places his arm around my shoulders, his body warm.

"You did a good job, love. You did it," he says with a thick voice as he adjusts himself. "Just relax. Take some deep breaths. You don't have to fight anymore."

When I look up to him he attempts to offer me a smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes. I look into his blue eyes once more, finding that they're the wet kind of shiny, before mine finally shut and I let myself collapse against him.

~~~

I wake up to the smell of dirt, my face buried in it while the rest of my body is tucked in a tarp. My head aches as I open my eyes gently. I sit up slowly to find Pietro and Nat sitting at my feet, whispering urgent, worried words. Unintentionally, I shift just a bit too much and the tarp crackles in response, making both Pietro and Nat whip their heads in my direction.

"Oh my God," Pietro says before jumping up to run over to me. He reaches me in seconds, his hands first grabbing my shoulders but quickly engulfing me in a hug. "I was so worried about you, Ave. Don't you ever do that again, okay?"

My eyebrows scrunch in confusion as I try to remember what he's referring to, but my mind draws a blank. After a few moments of thinking I'm still puzzled, as my last memory is of finding Nat and leaning into Pietro. "Piet?"

He breaks the embrace but keeps his hands on my arms, tracing small circles with his thumbs. "Yeah?"

"What happened?"

Pietro looks at me in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"The last thing I can remember is finding Nat, but I feel like more than that happened. Especially since we're in a hut?"

I watch Nat as she slowly gets up and walks to Pietro. She leans down and whispers something in his ear, which he nods to. He lets go of my arms hesitantly and begins to stand, Nat quickly taking his place. Pietro leaves the small room we're in and I sit up a bit farther, letting my back find the wall behind me.

"Alright, so what do you remember?" Nat asks gently, getting right to the point.

"I remember healing Pietro. It took a lot more out of me than it normally does, and made me a lot more tired considering it was only one injury. After I healed him we turned to fight the animal that was coming after us but then you killed it. I remember asking you a question, but that's it." I pause to look at Nat's face and see if it reveals anything, but it doesn't. "Did I pass out?"

"We aren't really sure what happened, but until we have a more experienced doctor-person with us we came up with a shaky explanation. We think that when you were healing Pietro that the type of venom in the bite was engineered to be able to transfer through your healing ability. That animal was designed to kill one of you, but because of the vial you had you were able to overcome it. It's not the best theory, but it's the most logical one we have right now."

I let the information process in my head, everything moving a bit too slow for my liking. After a few moments I nod my head, the theory settling in my brain. 

"So you think that they were trying to kill either me or Pietro, and they wanted to see who would save who?"

"Pretty much. Pietro's pretty shaken up about it. He doesn't like the idea of you being in danger, let alone almost dead." Nat cracks a small, joking smile, but it quickly disappears. "He thinks this is all his fault. Which, though I hate to say it, isn't far off– if you didn't remember the vial you had, you would've died. You had already gone into shock, but something apparently triggered your memory just in time. Considering how long it took for you to wake up, if you had waiting even just a couple minutes longer before taking it you probably wouldn't of made it." Her voice is just above a whisper by the time she finishes, and I avoid her eyes, trying to take it all in. Finally it all sinks in, and I realize something.

I tilt my head with hesitant questioning. "A vial?"

Nat eyes me and forces me to make eye contact. "I know you know what I'm talking about." She doesn't waste time trying to explain. "Two vials. One's a revival serum, the other one neither Pietro or I have been able to decode. And a note. Pietro said the note was what made you remember how much serum to take."

"Can I see the note?" I remember slightly what the note contains, but I can't help but wonder that if reading it over will help me to remember what happened.

Nat nods, standing up to get the note. She takes it from the table in the corner, which I had failed to notice until now. She hands it to me as she sits.

I read the words with a gentle patience, but none of them bring a memory. I get to the end of the message and am about to hand the note back when something sticks out. _Bradley_.

I close my eyes, inviting the memories to return. Finally, with me squeezing my eyes shut and forcing my head into my hands, the memories flash through my mind, each only lasting for a moment but filling in the gaps.

_"Ave, I need you to stay awake, okay? Just a few more minutes."_

_warm blanket at night_

_my mother's hands_

_Tony's sleek, black cars, no music_

_Pietro. His name is Pietro._

_snuggling on the couch cold winter's day snow drifting_

_the woman's voice was a deep purple and black_

_Pietro's is light pink and yellow_

_cotton candy_

_"Pietro, I have one."_

_air_

_air_

_AIR_

_can't breathe_

_air_

_BRADLEY_

_metal taste_

_"You did a good job, love. You did it. You don't have to fight anymore."_

I open my eyes with a start and to find that Pietro has come back into the room. He stands impatiently behind Nat, pacing and shaking, his hands darting between his hair, head, and legs. His movements remind me of what TV static would act like if it were a person. His eyes never leave me, and he slowly moves toward me.

"Not yet, Pietro," Nat says from her seat next to me. Her behavior is the exact opposite of Pietro's: she's calmly sitting, her hands resting in her lap and her eyes casually resting on me. She lifts a hand and places it on my leg.

"Are you alright?" Nat asks softly.

I nod my head, still attempting to catch my breath from the flood of memories. "I remember some of what happened. Enough of what happened."

Nat ducks her head, averting her eyes, before tilting her head toward Pietro. She doesn't say a word but nods her head, and Pietro all but tackles me in an embrace.

"What happened? Are you okay? Do you need help, I can help, let me help," Pietro rushes out, and Nat lays a hand on his shoulder. Pietro takes a deep breath when she does.

"Remember, Pietro," is all Nat says, but Pietro understands the words and nods. He pulls out of the embrace to look me in the eyes.

"What happened?" He asks again, but without as much panic.

"I just had some memory flashes. Of what happened. That's all." I put up a weak smile, my voice feeling raw for some reason.

"That's not what the screams and gasps sounded like, Ave," Pietro says, his breaths stuttering again. "Ave, are you sure you're okay, I can help you, please let me–"

"Максимофф, будь нежным." Nat says the foreign words in a warning tone, and Pietro turns around with haste, redirecting his attention for a moment.

"No, Romanova, I don't have to follow all your rules!" Pietro begins to advance toward Nat as he yells. "You aren't always right, okay? I'm worried for her! I'm allowed to be worried for her! Not all of us were trained to be emotionless!"

The words slice through the air, each one hitting Nat like knives. The last sentence strikes her like a hand across the face, her head whipping to the side to avoid Pietro's eyes. I watch as Nat's eyes fill with angry tears, but she doesn't let a single one fall. The room stays quiet, Pietro and Nat silenced by anger, I by shock. Nat takes a deep breath, tilting her chin up but still not looking at Pietro.

"I know you don't mean that, Pietro, you're speaking out of anger at the situation, not at me–"

"No, Natasha, that's where you're wrong, I know exactly what I'm saying and I mean every word." Pietro barks each word out, his voice an angry tone I've never heard come out of him before. "Yes, I'm angry at all of this, at this entire situation in general, at the fact that we were kidnapped, the _Avengers_ themselves were kidnapped, at the fact that they're trying to get us to kill each other and that if we don't kill each other they'll kill us anyway, and that someone who I love almost died because I couldn't handle myself, and now because someone is trying to tell me to calm down and not freak out and not worry because everything's going to turn out okay when guess what, Natasha, it probably won't, considering that we've only been here for a couple hours and one of us basically died already! So, yeah, I'm a bit angry at a lot of things, but I haven't said a word to you that I didn't mean, советский убийца."

Nat whips her head back around at the last words, and though I don't know their meaning, I can tell they hurt. I watch as she holds herself back from advancing on Pietro, but her stare reflects the amount the words hurt her. 

Her voice shakes some as she speaks, her anger bleeding through her words. "You have no right speaking of me like that. That was who I was. You should know better than anyone that people can change."

"Maybe so, but at least I found out before I murdered hundreds of people."

Nat no longer hesitates, instead closing the distance between her and Pietro in seconds, grabbing him by the wrist and making him look her in the eyes.

"I did what had to be done," she whispers with venom, "and you know I won't hesitate to do it again. So I'd suggest keeping quiet, Максимофф, before I change my mind about letting you stay here."

Finally I burst out of my head, jumping in between Nat and Pietro. "Woah, guys, chill out, okay?! This is what they want!" The two separate when I step in, but hold their angry stares. "Look, before I was sent in here I was detained by a man. I'm aware we're probably being watched and recorded so I'm not going to get into what happened but he told me this: _"Remember who the enemy is."_ You two need to remember that, too. We aren't fighting each other. That's what they want us to do. The enemy isn't the people in here, but the people outside, alright? Can we try to keep at least one of us alive today?" The words flood out of my mouth in a slightly irate tone, and both Pietro and Nat slowly lose the angered faces they were holding.

"Yeah, yeah you're right, Ave," Pietro says quietly, his head tucked. He steps even farther away, then turns completely and leaves the hut. I begin to follow him out, but not before I look to Nat. She meets my eyes, but doesn't say anything.

"Well?" I ask in an impatient tone.

"If you're waiting for me to apologize, you're going to be standing there for quite a while," she says as she turns to sit. "If anyone should be apologizing, it's that excuse of an Avenger. I know you don't know Russian, but the things he said in English were bad enough."

She sits on one of the chairs surrounding the table, taking out a knife and twirling it her fingers. She doesn't look at me when she speaks. "I had this on me the whole time. You're lucky I didn't feel like using it."

With a deep breath, I turn and walk out of the hurt to where Pietro has taken a seat. Before I join him, I look at the scenery around us. It looks that we've gone deeper into the forest, trees surrounding us completely.

"I took a run around. We're about a fifteen minutes walk from the shore," Pietro says, reading my mind.

"Anyone else here yet?" I continue on the subject for a moment, not wanting to get into what just happened quite yet.

"A couple people. Looks like they came in on boats, little inflatable ones. There was one guy, a bit older than us but younger than Stark, who I've never seen before. Clint's here too, a bit deeper into the forest. Once I was at the shore, I saw a boat coming in– looked like Stark, Peter Parker, and Rhodes were on it. I haven't seen Wanda at all yet." His voice quiets when he says the last sentence, and I wrap my arm around him.

"It's alright. Maybe she wasn't taken," I say, looking at him.

"Or she's dead." He says the statement bluntly, surprising me. When he turns and sees the look of shock on my face, he continues. "What? You almost died within the first few hours, and you're the healer. It's very possible she's already dead, and you know it."

I don't say anything for a moment, but after a few seconds I nod. "Yeah," I whisper as I lean my head on his shoulder. "It's possible."

I feel him take a shuddering breath in. I begin to rub circles on his back, just as he did on my arms earlier. "Who else do you think is here?" He asks quietly.

I take a moment to think. "Well, we know there's you and I. Natasha. I saw Peter and Tony after interrogation earlier, and I'd like to catch up with them at some point today if that's possible." I look to him, silently suggesting he speeds us to them, and he nods. 

"Later, I can bring you," he says. "There's also Rhodes with them. That makes six so far."

"Plus Clint and the other man on the boat," I add. "Eight. Then Gamora, I spoke with her at the beginning. I saw Bucky and Steve, too. Eleven."

"Who else was at the facility this morning?" Pietro asks. "Because, if you remember, when we ran back after the noises, there was no one left in the kitchen. That can't be a coincidence."

I had completely forgotten about the impromptu meeting this morning following my vision. I think back to who was there, scanning the faces in my memory. "Well, Strange was there. Thor too. Was Bruce?"

"Don't think so, but that doesn't mean he's not here."

"Alright, so that's fourteen, if we count Bruce. Plus Wanda, if she's here. Fifteen. Who else was there?"

"I think that was everyone at the facility, but there are other Avengers who don't stay at the facility. What about T'Challa? He's got a pretty big name, being an Avenger and a king."

"True, if I were kidnapping Avengers, he'd be on my list." I pause as the thought goes through my mind again. "Wait, that's how we need to be thinking. Who would we kidnap if we were them?"

Pietro lets out a small laugh. "Weird way to think of it, but I guess you're right." He stops talking, thinking for a moment. "Well, I'd want all of the big name superheroes. We already said most of them, but what about Falcon? Ant-Man?"

"Alright, there's eighteen. Doesn't Ant-Man work with someone else, too? The Wasp, right?"

"Oh yeah, they do normally work together. So that's nineteen, right?"

"Think so."

"Well, if I were a psychopath who kidnapped superheroes, I'd have it be an even number." I laugh at the statement, and Pietro away in slight embarrassment. "What? You were the one who said we have to think like them! So who are we missing?" 

I go through everyone again, but I can't think of anyone else. "Maybe Thor's brother, Loki? I don't know who else would be here."

"What about T'Challa's sister? The insanely smart inventor?"

"I doubt they'd take her, she's only like sixteen."

"They took Peter."

The sentence burns through my head. "You're right, God, he's only sixteen, isn't he? Is he even sixteen yet?"

"I honestly don't know," Pietro says with sympathy. "We're only nineteen and twenty. Still pretty young, too."

"But he's _little_. The kid was talking about his homework and being good at taking notes this morning. He's literally in what, tenth grade? And now he's here. Fighting superheroes to the death. He shouldn't be here, he needs protection," I say, my thoughts turning into messes of words. Peter's so young, and he's here, fighting Avengers, trained, deadly, ruthless Avengers. 

"Stark will protect him, you know that," Pietro says, brushing off the fact that a kid is here, and could very well die at any moment. "What about Vision?"

"Yeah," I say distantly, my thoughts still revolving on the young spider superhero. "Maybe him."

"So that makes twenty, right? Unless there's a lot of people we forgot."

"Yeah, that makes twenty." I refocus myself, and bring up something that's been bothering me since the beginning. "But how many are our allies?"

Pietro stays silent at that question. "Well, I guess there's Nat, considering she hasn't killed me yet."

"She's about to though, so maybe keep your mouth shut when we go back in there." I let out a small laugh, but Pietro doesn't laugh with me. I continue with the list of allies. "There's also Tony, Peter, and Rhodes. I know they'll have my back, especially after what happened in interrogation. I'm hoping Gamora will also ally with us, she could be really helpful on our team."

"You've really thought about this, huh?" Pietro looks at me in slight surprise, as if he expected me to not have input on this topic.

"Yeah, well, we're kinda somewhere that's designed to kill us. I want a good team to fight that.

"I know we'll have Bucky, and with Bucky comes Steve, and with Steve comes Sam, if he's here. Strange might not ally with us but he won't fight us. Probably the same with Thor, T'Challa, and Bruce. Wanda, if she's here, will ally with us easily. I'm a little confused on Clint; we aren't the best of friends but we are friends, but it was his arrow that almost shot me earlier. This place must've changed him already, so we'll have to watch out for him, figure out his intentions.

"We know virtually nothing about the man in the boat, so he's a wild card. Ant-Man and The Wasp have been nothing but kind to me in the times I've been with them, so I think we can convince them to become allies with us pretty easily. And let's see, we decided Vision was the twentieth, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Pietro says, still caught up in my words.

"Well, he'd probably side with Wanda, Bruce, or Tony, so we don't have to worry about him. So, really, the only people we need to worry about are Clint, the man in the boat, and the people controlling this place. The rest are either on our side or at least won't fight against us. Those aren't bad odds."

Pietro takes a moment to let it all settle before speaking. "Wow. You, you _really_ thought about this."

"Pietro, there's a good chance that people we know are going to die here. Like, a really good chance. I'm not about to go out there without any plan. I know where my loyalties lie, and you should know where yours lie, too."

He nods, then takes a breath. "I should probably apologize to Natasha, shouldn't I."

"Yeah, unless you want a trained assassin against us. Or, against you."

"Thanks for the pep-talk, babe," Pietro says with annoyance, standing up. "If I'm not back in ten minutes, I'm probably dead."

I stand up, following him into the hut. "Oh, no, I'm coming with. No one's dying on my watch. I won't stop her from lightly stabbing you though."

Pietro turns to me with an annoyed expression, and I let out a small laugh before we enter. "Hey, all I'm saying is that if I can heal the injury, it's fair game."

~~~

Pietro and I enter the hut to see Nat sitting in the same seat, but she's put away the knife she had out when I spoke to her and instead has my vials in front of her. She's looking closely at the unknown vial when we come in, and she pulls it away from her face and leans back in her chair when she sees us.

"Yes?" Her face is back to holding its stony, unbreakable expression.

"I shouldn't have said what I did," Pietro starts, not meeting Nat's intimidating eyes. "It wasn't fair to you, you were right that I was feeling a lot at once and I took it out on you. I'm sorry."

I'm a bit surprised at Pietro's apology, but Nat doesn't change her expression. Instead, she nods, then kicks the two chairs next to her out. "Sit," she says sharply, and we do. Though I've done nothing wrong, I can't help but feel nervous as I sit down next to the assassin, as if I'm about to receive a scolding from a parent.

She hands me the vial she was looking at before, and I finally get a look at it since the dark room. The letters look foreign, and though I have some knowledge of a few languages outside English, I have no clue what these words are.

"Any thoughts?" Nat asks, her voice taking on the gentle tone she spoke to me with earlier.

I shake my head. "It's obviously foreign, but nothing I know. Closest guess I'd have is Russian, but if it were I doubt you'd be asking me what it is."

"You're on the right track; I'm a bit rusty, but I think it's Bulgarian. Only problem is that I haven't spoken or read Bulgarian in probably ten years, so we're back to square one."

"Let me see," Pietro says quietly, and I hand it to him.

"Do you know Bulgarian?" I ask, and he nods. "When did you learn that?"

"About a... year ago, for an under...cover mission," Pietro says distractedly, his eyes squinting at the letters. "Think I got it."

"What is it?" Nat asks, her voice holding the gentle tone she used with me. She must've chosen to move on, also understanding that holding a grudge in a place like this isn't the best idea.

"премахване на усилване," Pietro says, the words gracefully forming in his accent. "It's a bit of a weird transfer to English, but if we put it in context I think it roughly translates to enhancement remover. If I'm right, it's supposed to be used on someone who has a genetic power, like me or you. If I were to take this, I think it would get rid of my super speed."

"Wait, so if we were to use it on Steve, hypothetically, he would go back to the way he was before he was injected with the super soldier serum?" Nat asks, a mischievous grin growing on her face. 

"I guess so," I say, and look to Nat. "But we aren't trying it."

"Come on, Ridley, you hear all the stories Bucky tells about pre-serum Steve, you don't want to see it for yourself?"

"It's not that I don't want to see it, it's that we don't want a super soldier against us, and I'm sure that if we use a serum remover on him, he won't want to be best friends with us," I say, and Nat tilts her head in confusion.

"She's come up with an entire list of allies and people to avoid here. It's pretty brilliant, but also a bit strange how she thought it all up already," Pietro says, cracking a smile.

"Who's on this list of allies?" Nat asks, her smile growing too.

"Well, you two obviously. Bucky is an immediate ally, and with Bucky comes Steve and most of the time Sam. We decided that Sam and most of the other Avengers are most likely here. We came up with a list of twenty Avengers that we think were taken too while we were sitting outside.

"I'm hoping that Gamora will become an ally; I have a meeting with her at the shores at dusk tonight, and I'm planning on bringing up the idea then. Tony and Peter will definitely ally with me if I ask, and Rhodey was also with them, so he probably will too. We haven't come to a conclusion on whether Wanda is here or not, but if she is she'd ally with us. Vision is probably here, and he'll probably go with Wanda, so we have him too. Dr. Strange probably won't directly ally with us, but I doubt that he'd go against us, same with Thor, Bruce, and T'Challa. Pietro saw a man travelling by boat when he took a run to the shores, but we don't know who he is, so he's in neutral area right now. We also think that the Ant-Man and the Wasp are here, and they've always been kind to me, so I don't think we have to worry about them as enemies. We may want to look into them becoming our allies, even if they don't have their suits; I know from seeing her fight that the Wasp's hand-to-hand skills are very good, so I'd assume Ant-Man's are too. The only person I've decided is a threat to us is Clint since he tried to attack me at the beginning of the battle-of-sorts." I finish speaking and Nat nods, an approving smile resting on her face.

"Well done, Aveline. I'm proud of you," Nat says, her tone a bit surprised. She takes a breath before speaking again, and when she does her voice comes out a bit softer, her words tinged with sadness. "I agree with looking at Clint as an enemy. I don't know what got into him, but he's not the same." She pulls up her right sleeve to reveal a long, red wound. "He shot me with one of his arrows. It was aimed at my head, but I ducked just in time. Raised my arm out of instinct and it got me pretty good. I don't know why he's acting this way, but we can't trust him. Not yet, at least."

Both Pietro and I nod our heads, not saying a word. Finally, Nat stands and peeks out of the door of the hut. I'm reminded of a question I had when I first woke, and I ask it quickly while we're in between subjects.

"Hey, Nat? Where did this place come from?" She turns and looks at me in confusion, so I elaborate. "The hut. Where did it come from?"

"I... don't know," she says, breaking eye contact to look around. "I found it when I was walking around. Didn't think about it at the time."

Suddenly, she takes to going to each corner of the hut. To each one she goes to, her movements become more rushed, until she's running to the last one.

"Get your stuff," she says quietly, as if she doesn't want to wake someone. "Get it. Now."

Pietro and I get out of the chairs and grab our pack, the two vials, and the note left by Bradley. Nat runs to the back of the room and grabs her belongings. She turns to look at the both of us.

"Once you have your stuff, get out. Not too quick, but get out. Now," she says, her tone making me worried. I grab the tarp that I was wrapped in when I woke up, trying to help Nat. "No, Ave, get out. Now!" She yells, and I finally notice a small clicking noise coming from above.

I run out with the tarp in my hand to see Pietro outside. He throws an armful of stuff onto the ground about thirty feet away, then blurs past me into the hut. I watch as he brings another armful of things out, and finally after one more trip I see Pietro run Nat out of the hut, her arms holding the last of the stuff.

The two stop next to me, and we slowly begin to shuffle backwards.

"Nat, what's going on?" I ask slowly, though I'm not sure why– everything about this situation should urge me to speak quickly.

"It's rigged. Give it ten seconds, tops." Her words further confuse me, but Pietro seems to understand and swears under his breath.

"What do you mean it's rig–"

I'm barely able to get the words out when an explosion fills my ears and I feel hands scoop me up and a familiar nauseous feeling overcome me. I find myself sitting on the shore, and Nat quickly joins me, followed by our stuff. After a few seconds, Pietro falls into a sitting position next to us, dropping the last of our things on the shore.

"Jeez, Nat, next time you're planning on blowing us up, maybe give us a bit more of a heads up," Pietro quietly jokes, and Nat lets out a puff of air, a small smile appearing on her face.

"So," I start, leaning my head back to look at the slowly darkening sky, "that's what you meant by rigged."

Nat makes a small noise of agreement. We all sit in silence for a few minutes, Nat eventually taking to leaning on my shoulder and Pietro laying completely on the sand. I watch the sky as it continues to darken, but the colors remain the same. I'm not sure what I expected, but a small part in my was hoping for a sunset, at least a bit of normalcy in this foreign place.

Nat sits up from my shoulder slowly once the sky turns to a gray. After rolling her neck out and stretching her shoulders, she stands silently and collects an armful of her things. I move to follow her but am cut off by her words before I can.

"I've got this. Pietro can help. If I remember correctly, you have a meeting to attend to." She looks at me with a small smile on her face, and though it's beginning to darken around us I sense a proud look in her eyes.

I stand up and brush the sand off my pants before nodding my head. "I suppose I do."

**_~~~~~_ **

I watch the sky fade to complete black as I'm sitting alone on the beach. Pietro and Nat left a while ago while the sky still hinted blue, off to find a place to camp out for the night and to give me space to have my meeting without disruption.

However, the shores now reflect a sliver of white and the only light shining down on me is the crescent moon above.

The air begins to chill as I sit, my eyes studying the water silently with the hopes that Gamora will show soon. Though she told me not to worry if she didn't show tonight, I'm beginning to frustrate. I've been waiting for what feels like an hour by now and there has been no sign of Gamora– or anyone else. After about five minutes of sitting in the dark, I stand. Gamora said to meet at dusk, and it's past that now, so I might as well find Pietro and Nat and our temporary sleeping area.

I begin to walk up the beach, quickly making it off of the cold sand. Though the moonlight is bright in comparison to the darkness I'm shrouded in, I still can't see where I'm going. I don't want to risk going in the wrong direction, but I also don't want to risk yelling to find out where they are. Should either Clint or the man from the boat be nearby and be an enemy, they'd know where we are immediately. I'm still weighing my limited options when a gust of air hits me, and I'm standing face to face with the local speedster. Before I can ask how he knew I was here, he scoops me up. I look to find a grin resting on his face, and it only grows as he speaks.

"We found a place to stay. And a couple friends, too."

I don't even try to question him before he begins to run, knowing at this point that it's a lost cause. The run is shorter than usual, making me only slightly nauseous, but it still manages to throw me off.

We stop in an area surrounded by trees, all tinted a bright orange. I look down to see a small fire burning and Nat placing her hands over it. The embers spark with the gust of wind that Pietro brings, and a familiar voice speaks up.

"Woah there, fastsilver, don't want to be putting out our fire! Only took what, an hour to get it going?"

I take in a breath as I listen to the voice that's speaking from through the fire and watch the thousands of memories that are coming to mind. I vaguely hear Pietro groan at the butchering of his superhero name as I race around the fire, hoping that I'll see the person I'm expecting.

My ears weren't deceiving me– Bucky's sitting behind the small wall of flames, and I engulf him in a hug once I see him.

"Ave," I hear him say softly as he returns the hug. "I'm glad to see ya, doll. Though it's not under great circumstances."

I pull out of the embrace to meet his eyes. They're watering, and I can't tell if it's from the smoke or from me. I laugh as I wipe my own tears away, which I know are definitely not from the fire. "I'm glad to see you too, Bucky."

"Well, we obviously know who's the favorite, huh?"

I turn to find Sam standing and looking at me with fake accusation, and Steve laughing to his left. I run over and give the other two a hug as well. Though I'm not nearly as close with them as I am with Bucky, I'm still fairly close with Steve and have been pretty good friends with Sam for a few years now. I haven't seen him in a few months, and though it's in a strange place, I'm glad to see him again. He gives me a pat on the back before sitting back down, his face grimacing a bit when he bends his knee.

"Hey, what happened?" I squat down, placing my hands on Sam's knee's to try to find the problem.

"Oh, I'll tell you what happened. Little punk Barton thinks he's so cool shootin' his teammates, like I haven't saved that puny little arrow-shooting royalty from death multiple times before." Sam pauses to roll up the pant leg on his right leg to show a large, red wound, definitely the result of an arrow. Sam continues to talk as I begin to heal his knee, the wound quickly stitching up under my fingertips. "Can't wait to give him a piece of my mind now that he's on the other side. Y'know, everyone used to tell me, _"Oh, he'll grow on you,"_ and _"He's really a good guy once you get to know him,"_ but then he pulls crap like this! Not to be that guy, but I can't wait to shove it in everyone's face and say told you so. Knew from day one that guy was trouble. I knew it! Little jerk."

"Sam, you do know you two are like, the same age. He's not little," I say, holding back the urge to laugh.

"Well, he acts like a petty twelve year old, so he's little. Out here, shooting his teammates. Wish we had phones in here. I'd totally have Bucky record me finally beating him up."

"Sam, come on man," Steve says, but he can't contain his laughter.

"Sam, I know you've never really liked Clint, but take it easy, alright? Something happened and he's changed. We're gonna fix him," Nat says quietly from her spot next to the fire.

I had almost forgotten that she was here, along with Pietro. Once the thought enters my mind, I turn my head around to try to see him, and I find him sitting next to Nat. I let out a small breath of relief, one I didn't realize I was holding.

I turn my attention back to Sam's knee, and watch as the wound completely mends back together. "All set, Sammy." I stand and turn to Bucky and Steve. "Either of you have wounds that I need to heal while I'm at it?"

"Surprisingly, no. Sam was the only one to get hit today." Steve's tone sounds even more surprised than how I feel as he speaks.

"Even more reason for me to hate Barton. Only aimed for me."

"Nah, he aimed for us too, you just aren't as good as dodging things as we are," Bucky teases, and I take the seat across from Nat. I relax as they continue to banter, falling into the domestic rhythm that I had already felt I lost in the few hours we've been here.

I look to my left to Pietro and offer him a smile. He's been quiet since we've gotten back, but when he returns the smile back I realize he's probably been quiet so that I could catch up with them and not because something was wrong. I scold myself on being so paranoid about every little thing that happens here, but I can't help myself.

After a few more minutes of listening to the light conversations, I put my hands over the fire, the cold finally getting to me. When the talking dies down, I ask my question.

"So, how'd you guys start this fire up anyway?"

"Sam grabbed all the fire starters from the supplies building and threw them in his bag. Didn't realize how helpful they'd be, or I would've grabbed some too," Nat says from across the fire, the flames dying down enough for me to see her face now.

"Yeah, those suckers were what I got shot over," Sam says, annoyance hinting at his voice yet again.

"Everything loops back to you getting shot, doesn't it?" I ask, laughing.

"As long as he remembers what happened, everything will have to do with him getting shot today," Bucky responds, and Sam hits him on the arm. Bucky makes a sound of fake hurt, and the two resume their light bickering and mocking of each other. Steve laughs along for a few moments before I watch his eye catch something. He squints into the darkness behind Pietro before speaking up, causing Bucky and Sam to stop talking.

"Who's that?" Steve stands as he asks the question, walking around the fire toward Pietro and standing a few feet behind him.

"Hey!" He shouts, and I wince at the loud noise. Though we haven't been super quiet, Steve shouting is pretty much the equivalent to having a blinking light pointing directly to where we are. "Who's out there?"

When no one responds, Steve looks to Bucky. "Buck," he says, and Bucky immediately bends over.

"On it," he says, quickly pulling out a flashlight and a small, gray disk. Bucky throws the flashlight first, and when he throws the disk it expands and turns into a shield, much like the one he uses outside of the arena. Steve waits a few seconds, then turns on the flashlight, sweeping the area.

"Who's there?" He asks again, his voice still painfully loud.

Finally, a figure comes out of the darkness, hands in the air and his head down in hesitance.

"Hey, hey, hey, please don't hurt me, I'm not lookin' for trouble," the man gets out quickly. I don't recognize him, but Pietro turns to me quickly.

 _Man on the boat,_ he mouths, and my eyes widen. I stand up quickly.

"Who are you?" I ask, my eyes squinting in uncertainty.

"You might not know me," he says, slowly moving closer to the fire. "Any of you from space?"

When we all shake our heads, he nods his. "Yeah, that's what I figured. I'm kinda a big name up there. Name's Peter Quill, but I'm pretty well known by the name Star-Lord."

"You're... _you're_ Star-Lord?" Nat asks in a disbelieving tone as Steve collapses his shield, tossing the disk back to Bucky.

"Uh, ye-yeah I'm Star-Lord, why?" The man looks almost a bit offended at Nat's response.

"I just thought... never mind, it's not important," Nat says, laughing a bit to herself as she waves him off.

"So, Star-Lord, why are you here?" I have a lot of questions for the man, but I decide to go with the most relevant one first.

"First off, call me Quill. Second, I saw fire and people and thought that I should probably come this way if I wanted even a chance of surviving. That was until Captain America himself started yellin' at me, of course."

"Valid reason," Sam comments from the back, and I vaguely hear Bucky tell him to shut up.

"Alright, Quill. Next question: Do you know anyone else here?"

"Don't think so? I didn't really see anyone, the guard's smacked me up pretty good so I was passed out for a few minutes after the gates opened or something, I don't really know what happened."

"So you didn't see anyone?" Steve asks.

"Nope. You guys are the first people I've like, actually seen. I saw somethin' blue run by me earlier that kinda looked like a person, but I'm not really sure. I also saw this guy with some arrows getting out of a boat when I was about to get onto shore, but he booked it pretty quick."

"Clint's over here?" Nat asks, her tone a bit worried, but I can't tell if the worry is for us or for Clint.

"If that guy's name is Clint, then yeah, guess so."

"You didn't know that, Nat?" I ask gently, and her eyes whip to meet mine.

“You did?" Her head tilts and I almost brace myself for a scolding, but Pietro speaks up.

"I was going to tell you, Nat, but I figured since you were already under enough stress with everything that you didn't need to know about him yet," Pietro explains, his voice staying quiet. 

Nat's mouth thins into a line, and she takes a deep breath before speaking. "We'll talk about that later. But Quill, you didn't see anyone else? There's no one you might know?"

"I saw nothing. Sorry."

"What do you got for materials?" Bucky asks from the back, his hands supporting him as he leans back.

"Just the boat. Everything else was gone once I got there. Honestly surprised on how a boat was left out of all of the things, but I'm not arguin'. Whatever works, I guess."

"You're really trying to tell us that you don't have anything? You think we're gonna believe that?" Sam asks, his voice taking on the tone he spoke about Clint in.

"It matches up. I saw him earlier, he didn't have anything in the boat but himself," Pietro says, and Quill looks at him in confusion. "I'm the blue thing that ran by you," he explains quickly, and Quill nods slowly.

I walk a bit closer to Quill, and look at him closely. His hair is a bit of a mess and his suit is a bit torn around the ankles, but he still gives off a certain glow, one that reminds me of looking at an old photograph. I take a deep breath and hold eye contact with him, now only a few feet away.

"Can we trust you?" I ask him quietly, knowing that a few of the Avengers behind me won't be able to hear me.

"Yes." He answers right away, and I can see in his eyes that he's telling the truth. Something about the way he carries himself and speaks makes me want to trust him right away, though I know that I can't fall into a trap this easily. His eyes search mine for a more complete answer, one that tells him if he's welcome here or not, one that tells him if he's trusted or not, but I can't give him that complete answer quite yet. Instead, I simply nod and step back, returning to my spot near the fire. His eyes follow me, and when no one makes a move or asks him another question, I wave him over and invite him to sit next to me. He moves quickly, as if I'm going to take back my offer, and sits, taking to putting his hands near the fire almost instantly.

The two trained assassins, retired pararescue, and the super soldier all eye him carefully. Pietro sits on the other side of Quill, but looks over only to meet my eyes, and I can tell he wants to ask a question but won't be the first to speak up. I decide that if the adults here are only going to stare, I might as well ease everyone into a conversation.

"So, where did you three come from anyway? You weren't around when Nat, Piet, and I crash landed on the beach," I ask, making sure my tone stays light.

"After we left you to have your meeting, Nat and I were going to look around for a spot to camp out, but I figured it'd be quicker to run around. I went all the way around the arena and was almost back to Nat when I ran into Bucky," Pietro explains.

"Literally. Knocked the wind right out of me," Bucky adds, laughing.

"They don't call me fastsilver for nothing, snowy soldier," Pietro teases, and the two laugh.

"Bucky and Pietro talked for a few minutes, and Pietro explained what had happened after the games begun: the bite, you two finding Nat, and something about a list of people. He was pretty brief about it all, but it seems like you guys have already been through a lot," Steve says, looking at me in sympathy.

"Yeah, well, it's not like this place was designed to be our home sweet home," I say, a sad smile growing on my face. I quickly change the topic, not wanting to get into the homesickness I've been avoiding since we've gotten here. "What about you, Quill? This anything like your home?"

"Well, my home's normally a spaceship, so I don't think anything is really like my home." We all look to him with confusion, so he elaborates. "My team and I are always bouncing around, causing a bit of trouble but also helping people get out of it. In comparison, I guess we're a more reckless version of the Avengers, but in space.

"We've got a talking raccoon and a talking tree. We have this guy named Drax, who's looks like what a baby elephant and a big guy had a kid. Pretty weird guy, but he's the muscle of our group for the time being. We also have this bug-girl, who can like, read your emotions just by touching you. She's definitely thrown me under the bus with it before, even if she didn't realize it. She and Drax both don't really understand English as well as the rest of us, or like, social interaction in general, so it's a bit difficult sometimes but it's worth it. We also have an ex-adopted daughter of Thanos who's a scary and wicked deadly assassin but once you get to know her she's a big softie. We've also got her sister, another daughter of Thanos, who's always mean. She's literally tried to kill Gamora like, at least three times since me and Gamora have been dating. It's pretty rough."

"Wait, Gamora?" I ask without thinking, and Quill's head whips to meet my eyes.

"Yeah, you know her?" His eyes widen and search mine desperately for a connection, and as much as I want to tell him, I don't think I should tell him that she's here yet.

"I've heard a lot about her. Seems pretty cool," I say, trying to keep the light tone I had set. Quill's eyes break eye contact and his shoulders drop a little at the simple statement. Pietro meets my eyes and makes a look of confusion, and I slightly shake my head. Thankfully, he doesn't speak up, though I know he wants to just as much as I do.

"Oh, uh, yeah, she's really cool. Definitely out of my league, but she's still into me for some reason. I'm not arguing." He laughs a little, trying to lighten his own mood, and everyone else laughs lightly too.

The talking dies for a few moments before Quill speaks up again, this time a bit quieter. "So, uh, I know you guys are Avengers, but who are you? Like, actually? I know Captain America and Black Widow, but who are the rest of you?" He looks around the circle when he says this, nodding his head to the appropriate people when he mentions them.

"I'm Bucky Barnes. Superhero name is the Winter Soldier. Or, I guess that's more my assassin name, but whatever, it's close enough. I was taken by HYDRA in the forties and trained to kill a lot of people over the decades. I was actually Steve's best friend before the war, and he found me again a few years ago, got me all fixed up. So yeah, that's basically my origin story. Nice to meet ya, Star-Lord," Bucky says, laughing a bit to himself as he sums up his life in a couple sentences.

"Name's Sam Wilson, and the superhero name's Falcon. I was a part of the pararescue unit in the army for a while, and used my suit for rescue missions. I retired after my partner was killed in action, but when Cap here needed my help finding his forties boyfriend-turned-assassin I was like, hey, why not. Got back into the rescuing business, but this time as an Avenger. I'm more of a low-key Avenger; I don't normally stay at their facility and don't come on as many missions as the rest of them, but I do still help out. I just try to lead more of a normal life now. How's that for an origin story?" Sam shoulders Bucky as he says the last sentence, and the two laugh.

"So, you know me?" Nat asks, her expression a bit surprised.

"Obviously! You're like, one of the coolest ones, you don't even have super powers but you're still one of the best Avengers. I'd be ashamed if I didn't know who you were." Quill's face lights up when he talks, and it reminds me of the time Nat talked to some fans on the street when we were coming home from running some light errands in town.

Nat smiles at the casual compliments, probably not expecting Quill to be this enthusiastic. "Wow, um, thanks!" She says as her smile grows even bigger.

"I'm assuming you don't know me, even though I'm obviously the best Avenger," Pietro says sarcastically. When Quill shakes his head, Pietro begins to tell about himself. "I was originally a part of HYDRA's testing with my twin sister –HYDRA was this Nazi organization that did experiments and was still around until a couple of years ago– and then the Avengers came in and tried to fight my sister and I and this robot guy we worked under for a while until we found out he was trying to kill everyone. It's a long story, but we eventually switched to the right side. But we got our powers from HYDRA, my sister Wanda getting telekinesis and the ability to search minds, me getting super speed. But I've been with the Avengers for a few years now, and I'm there full time. Guess that's it for my origin story. Well, unless you want to know that I've been dating the pretty girl next to you for a few months now, but I guess you don't really need to know that type of stuff quite yet." Pietro winks at me when he says the last sentence and I roll my eyes, hoping that the darkness is able to cover my blushing.

"While we're on the topic of me, hi, I'm Aveline. I don't have a superhero name, which should definitely change soon, but I've been with the Avengers for about three years now. I found Tony on accident after a battle and he was about to die, and I went to pick him up and bring him somewhere where he could get help when he just started healing at super speed. It's kind of a long story, but we found out that I have healing powers, so the Avengers took me in as a secret recruit and kept me off all public files, and a lot of the private ones too. I've been living at the Avenger's facility in secret since we found out I have powers but whoever's running this place found out somehow. I don't really have any cool origin story, we still don't know how I got my powers so that's kind of lame but I'm an Avenger so it's not that lame. But yeah, nice to meet you, Peter Quill." I offer him a smile, and he returns it easily.

"So, Mr. Lord, what's your origin story?" Sam asks jokingly, and Quill laughs.

"Well, it's a bit longer than all of yours. I was born in Missouri, and my mom died when I was eight from a brain tumor. Some space guys kidnapped me after she died and kept me in space, raised me, taught me scavenger stuff. Then I got involved with all the Infinity Stone crap for a minute, met the Guardians of the Galaxy in space jail, stole from some people, helped save some people, did some more good and bad, y'know how it goes. Fell in love, had some fun with my friends, stole some more stuff, almost died again. Met my dad who apparently was some god or something, and it turns out he killed my mom, but then I killed him, I guess. Family drama, gotta hate it. Met some more friends, then the guy who raised me who was the dad I never had sacrificed himself so I could live, but that part still hurts so we're gonna ignore it. We had a funeral for him and then the Guardians and I sorta just flew around space for a bit and made some more trouble. But then one day when I had brought the crew to Earth because a lot of them had never been and wanted to see what all the fuss what about, we were ambushed. They knocked me out before I could fight back. I don't know if any of the other Guardians are here, but as much as I hope they aren't going through this I also hope that at least one of them is here. I really like you guys and I know I can trust you, but it'd be nice to have a familiar face, y'know?"

I put a hand on his knee to comfort him. "I get it. We all have that advantage of sorts; we all know each other, but you don't yet. I don't blame you for wanting to have someone here that you know." My heart hurts when I say this, knowing that I could easily just tell him that Gamora's here.

"But now you have us," Nat says softly from across the fire. "You know us. Until you find out if there is anyone here that you know, you have us. We can be your temporary family."

I'm surprised by the amount of nodding heads showing agreement around the stories, thinking for some reason that the others wouldn't be as open to him as I am.

"Wow, uh, thanks." Quill seems taken back by the welcoming as well. "That really means a lot guys. Thank you."

"Course, man. It's not like we were just gonna turn you away," Sam says.

"Not gonna lie, I had prepared myself for that possibility," Quill says, laughing a bit. "But thanks for taking me in. If you all don't mind, I think I'm gonna head to sleep now. Getting a bit too late for my liking." He stands, and I nod to myself.

"Think I'll do the same thing. We're probably going to have to face a lot tomorrow, so you all should probably get to bed soon, too." I stand and make my way over to Pietro.

"You coming with or are you staying for now?" I whisper in his ear, not needing the others to hear this question.

"I'll be there in a few. If you go to the trees behind Steve, I set up a small fort for us. It's not the best, but it'll work for now. I'll meet you there once I help Nat clean up," he whispers back before planting a kiss on my cheek. I squeeze his shoulder before I begin to walk toward the fort Pietro made.

"See you all tomorrow!" I say as I walk away, though a part of my brain warns me that what I said might not be true depending on how the night goes. If any of the others think the same thing, it doesn't show, as they all return the sentence is staggered unison.

I finally turn my eyes from the fire and try to adjust to the darkness as best I can, my eyes slowly picking out details in the night. After about thirty seconds of walking, I come across a fort of sorts and conclude that it must be what Pietro was talking about. The structure is made from many fallen branches and leaves, and inside the small area is the tarp I was wrapped in earlier. I smile at Pietro's attempt to build something before crawling in, silently acknowledging that if we want this building to stand for longer than one night that I'll probably have to rebuild it tomorrow morning. 

I curl under the tarp, slowly warming up as my body heat radiates underneath it. My body quickly gets into a slow rhythm of breathing, making my eyes feel even heavier, and I vaguely feel Pietro lay down next to me as I finally fall into sleep.  



End file.
